The moment my retirement statement hit the wires, the industry exhaled a collective sigh of relief. The comment sections were a bloodbath of "good riddance" and "finally." Only one person staged a protest: Dominic Blackwood, the industry’s new "it-boy" singer-songwriter and the man my girlfriend was rumored to be sleeping with. He stood before a sea of cameras, his face a mask of performative grief. "It’s all a tragic misunderstanding," Dominic told the reporters, his voice dripping with faux-sincerity. "Nathan West is an indispensable titan of the music world. My only wish is to see him reclaim his throne." I clicked my phone screen off, the silence of my apartment swallowing his lies. In my past life, I hadn't ignored him. In that life, his "original" breakout single had been a note-for-note carbon copy of mine. The internet branded me a thief, a parasite, a hack. They told me to crawl into a hole and die. I had fought back with everything I had. I posted voice memos, dated lyric scraps, and Logic Pro session files. None of it mattered. In the court of public opinion, the only metric that counted was the timestamp on the release. His song had gone live ten minutes before mine. Those ten minutes cost me everything. People sent funeral wreaths to my doorstep. They photoshopped my face onto corpses. Someone even splashed red gloss paint across my front door, a screaming "JUDAS" in crimson. The years of relentless cyberbullying fractured my mind. Depression became the air I breathed. My parents poured their life savings into legal fees to clear my name, but the fans were faster. They were a cult, a wildfire. A group of "stans" set fire to my parents' house in a fit of righteous fury. My parents never made it out. On the night Dominic stood on a stage, weeping as he accepted the Grammy for Song of the Year—for my song—I stepped off the roof of a twenty-story building. I expected darkness. Instead, I opened my eyes to the blinding sun of a Tuesday morning I’d lived once before. The day of the release. ... 1 "Noon today. High noon, and the world changes." "Relax, Nate. With a track this good, the Vanguard Award for Best Songwriter is basically in your pocket." Mitch, my manager, clapped a hand on my shoulder. I gasped, lungs burning as if I’d just been hauled out of the ocean. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I stared at the familiar crown molding of my living room, then at Mitch’s confused face. The realization hit me like a physical blow: I was back. It was the morning of the disaster. "You’ve been burning the candle at both ends with this record," Mitch said, his voice softening. "I’ll clear your schedule for the next few days. Just get some sleep." "Wait!" I caught Mitch’s arm as he turned for the door. My eyes were glued to the wall clock. The second hand ticked—a heartbeat in the silence. When the minute hand hit the ten-minute mark, I pulled up my phone and went straight to Dominic Blackwood’s social media. Just like last time, the post was there. A link to a streaming site. The caption: 'Sunlight in the Ruins.' My soul, laid bare. Listen now. I tapped the link. The haunting, melodic acoustic intro filled the room. "What the hell?" Mitch lunged forward, snatching the phone from my hand. "That’s your track. That’s—Nate, that’s your entire hook! The lyrics, the bridge... everything. How the hell did Dominic get an advance copy?" "He didn't just get a copy, Mitch. He's claiming it's his." "Maybe someone at the studio leaked the stems? Someone’s head is going to roll for this. I’m calling the label—" "No," I said, my voice cold and sharp. "Tell the label we’re pulling the release. Cancel everything." In my first life, I had released my version anyway, thinking the truth would protect me. I was a fool. To the world, I was just the guy who saw a hit and tried to claim it ten minutes too late. I remembered the comments like they were tattooed on my brain: “Stole it and then faked the 'process' photos? How desperate can you get?” “Thief. Disappear.” Mitch and my engineers had tried to testify for me, and the internet had torn them apart too. And then there was Camille. Camille Vane, my A-list actress girlfriend who had kept our relationship "discreet" for the sake of her brand. That afternoon, she had gone live on Instagram. She didn't just distance herself from me; she declared her love for Dominic. She wept on camera, condemning my "unethical behavior" and praising Dominic’s "purity of spirit." It was the ultimate betrayal. I had played the song for her weeks before anyone else. She knew the truth, and she chose to bury me to elevate him. The industry blackballed me within forty-eight hours. My awards were rescinded. My label dropped me under the weight of the PR nightmare. Every time Dominic released a new "hit," I was dragged back into the light to be mocked all over again. The wreaths. The paint. The fire. The jump. "Nate, the label spent a fortune on the promo for this single," Mitch said, pacing the room. "The billboards in Times Square, the Spotify takeover... I can't just tell them 'never mind' without a reason." "Tell them the master is corrupted. Tell them I’m having a breakdown. I don’t care. Just don't put that song out." "Okay, okay. I’ll look into the leak quietly. In the meantime... you need to write something else. Fast. Give them a reason not to sue us for breach of contract." After Mitch left, I sat in the silence of my home, a ghost in my own life. Dominic was Camille’s "childhood friend." They grew up in the same posh Hamptons circle. When he graduated from Berklee, Camille used her influence to slide him into the industry’s inner sanctum. He signed with Apex Media, the biggest powerhouse in the country. His debut was a soundtrack for a Scorsese film. I was the self-made guy, the one who’d clawed his way up from playing dive bars. I’d been jealous of their "friendship" for years, but Camille always told me I was being insecure. “Our families are old friends, Nate. If I don’t help him, I look like the bitch of the family.” I had swallowed my pride to keep her happy. I didn't realize Dominic was the one she’d always wanted. I grabbed my laptop and began scouring Dominic’s old posts, looking for the glitch in the matrix. I found it in a photo from a month ago. August 26th. A picture of his mahogany desk, a whiskey glass, and the caption: In the flow. I zoomed in until the pixels screamed. On the legal pad in the corner of the frame, I saw my own handwriting—or a perfect imitation of it. My exact structural notes. Even a lyric I had scratched out and replaced was there, preserved on his page. This song was my autobiography. It was about the loss of my sister, about the specific salt-air smell of the Oregon coast. It was impossible for someone else to "coincidentally" write it. Did Dominic jump back in time too? No. That didn't fit. Dominic was a New Yorker through and through. He’d never set foot in the small coastal town where those lyrics were born. Mitch called an hour later. "Nothing. The studio is airtight. The engineers are clean. It’s like the song just... manifested in his head." I was cornered. Mitch was right about one thing: the label’s investment was too high to ignore. If I didn't produce a replacement, I was finished anyway. I locked myself in my home studio. I picked up my Fender, my fingers trembling. This time, I wouldn't write about grief or ghosts. I would write about vengeance. I would be Nemesis. I spent forty-eight hours in a fever dream of caffeine and adrenaline. I didn't use my main computer. I didn't use the cloud. I recorded a raw, gritty rock demo on an old, offline handheld recorder. I sent the file to Mitch. He replied within seconds with a string of fire emojis. “Rock? Nate, this is visceral. It’s genius. I didn't know you had this much rage in you.” He booked a session at a private, high-security studio an hour later. By the time we walked out of the booth, the sun was creeping over the horizon. "The label wants to wait," Mitch said, rubbing his eyes. "Next week is a holiday weekend. They want to drop this on the following Tuesday to maximize the charts. You okay with that?" I didn't answer immediately. "What’s Dominic doing?" "My contact at Apex says he’s gone dark. No promo tour, no interviews. He’s just... lurking." It was too strange. If you have the biggest song in the country, you run the victory lap. You don't hide. "Fine," I said. "Wait a week. Let’s see what happens." I went home and slept for fourteen hours. It was the first time I hadn't dreamt of fire. I was woken up by a frantic pounding on my front door. It was Mitch. His face was ghostly pale. "Nate. It happened again." My heart stopped. "What?" "Dominic just dropped a surprise second single. It’s the track we recorded yesterday. Every note. Every lyric. It’s a carbon copy." The air left the room. My courage, my "rebirth" plan, it all crumbled. How? I’d avoided the cloud. I’d kept my phone on the balcony. I’d used an analog recorder. How was he inside my head? Dominic Blackwood was now the undisputed king of the charts. He held the #1 and #2 spots simultaneously. He was the "voice of a generation." Fans flooded his comments, asking about the sudden shift from folk-pop to gritty rock. His response was chillingly calculated: "My first track was leaked and plagiarized by someone I used to respect. Luckily, I moved my release up. This new song is a warning. Talent is the one thing you can't steal, and I am the standard you will never reach." The internet didn't need a name to know he meant me. They found my label's old "coming soon" teasers and swarmed. “He was talking about you, wasn’t he? Where’s your 'original' music now, Nate? Too busy hitting 'copy-paste'?” My loyalists tried to defend me, but without a song to show, they were fighting a losing war. Dominic’s star was rising so fast it was blinding. Then, the woman I once loved finally called. "Dominic is having his release party tomorrow night," Camille said, her voice hard as flint. "You’re coming." I laughed, a jagged, bitter sound. "Why the hell would I do that?" "Because your fans are harassing him, and he’s been a mess because of it. If you still want a career—if you still want me—you’ll show up, shake his hand, and put these 'plagiarism' rumors to bed." He stole my soul, and she wanted me to thank him for it. "I'll be there," I said, my voice barely a whisper. I needed to see him. I needed to look into his eyes and figure out what kind of monster I was dealing with. The party was held at a penthouse in Soho. Camille was draped over Dominic’s arm, looking every bit the Oscar-winner she was. The room was packed with the industry’s elite. "Two singles, two records broken in one week," someone gushed. "The lyricism in the second one... that rock edge? It’s soul-shattering, Dom."
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