Coincidence or Jeanie? — Chapter 1: A Gut Feeling

Life without fun is like pizza without cheese, edible maybe, but missing the point.
And maybe that’s how this story starts, with me, and a weird gut feeling that turned out to be way more than just a hunch.

They call it intuition. That weird gut feeling. Like a whisper inside your head that says, Hey, something’s off.
Most people shrug it off. Too busy. Too distracted.
But not me. I always listen.

Maybe it’s a gift.
Maybe it’s a glitch in my brain.
Or maybe... it’s something else.

---

“Breaking news: a meteor has fallen on the outskirts of Edinburgh…” the anchor droned, all dramatic like she was narrating the end of the world.

Yeah, meteor. Flaming silver streak across the Scottish sky, crash-landed in some sheep field. Nobody hurt, just a little scorched grass. Half the internet went, miracle! The other half went, omen! My favorite headline? Act of God narrowly misses sheep farm.

Of course. Because apparently, even space rocks can’t fall without someone blaming or thanking God.
I muttered at the TV, “Sure. God throws a fireball at Scotland, misses the planet entirely, but nails a sheep pasture. Real inspiring stuff. Ten out of ten aim.”

I was reaching for the remote when my phone buzzed. Laura.
“Nick, can you pick me up? Class just ended.”

And that, believe it or not, is when the story really started.

---

The name’s Nick Clement. Twenty-one. British by birth, Californian by coincidence, atheist by choice.

I live in Pacifica now, a quiet little coastal town near San Francisco, with my sister Laura. She’s the responsible one, juggling dental school and wedding plans like some overachieving octopus. She’s moving out soon, which technically means I’ll have the house to myself. Sounds great until you realize “by myself” is just a polite way of saying “lonely loser with a fridge for company.”

My parents? Still in San Francisco, probably gardening or fighting over which Netflix show to binge. My middle sister, Alex, lives in the city too, buried in engineering equations I’ll never understand.
And me? I make games.

Yep, actual video games.
Last year, one of my indie projects randomly blew up - streamers, reviews, downloads, the whole deal. A mid-sized studio called, waved a paycheck at me, and I dropped out of school faster than you can say “disappointed teachers.” Not exactly the career arc they pictured, but hey, I built something real. Something people cared about.

Honestly? I was relieved. School always felt like limbo. Like standing in line for life to start.
Now, I code, design, build worlds. Get paid for it. Family’s happy. Bank account’s happy.

No drama.
Until… the Mall Incident.

---

I was on my way to pick up Laura. Just a regular Tuesday.
Halfway there, something twisted in my chest.

Not pain. Not indigestion. Just… a warning.

My knuckles went white on the steering wheel as I passed Pacifica Plaza, its glowing sign beaming like it had no clue what was about to happen.
There’s going to be an accident.

I slowed down, heart thudding.
Two minutes later, bam.

A bus clipped a bike, sent it skidding across the road like a ragdoll. Screams. Tires screeching. The biker hit the pavement hard, groaning but alive. Lucky guy.

It shook me.
Not the crash.
The fact that I knew it was coming.

And it wasn’t the first time.

Last month, I got this sudden stab of pain in my ribs while setting the table. No reason, just out of nowhere. That night, I found out our neighbor, Mr. Dalton, the guy who waves like he’s auditioning for a parade, had been mugged two blocks away. Broken ribs. Same side.

Laura slid into the passenger seat like nothing had happened.
I didn’t tell her right away. It wasn’t the first time.

Honestly, in the past week alone, I’d had twenty of these “feelings.” Some small, some bigger. All accurate.
When I finally did tell her, she just laughed.

“Happens to everyone at our age, Nick. Hormones. Brains rewiring. All that.”

I wanted to believe her. I really did.
But the next day, I got another one. A sharp image, Laura tumbling down the stairs.

And that evening, it happened. She slipped, arms flailing, crashing down the last few steps. Just a sprain, luckily, but I couldn’t brush it off anymore.

“You should rest,” I told her, trying not to sound panicked.
She agreed. I asked if I should stay home too.
She rolled her eyes. “No need. Go to work, psychic boy.”

---

That was Laura. Always brushing things off. Same girl who dragged me to church last week, swearing I needed “spiritual guidance.”

The priest asked if I wanted to pray. I stood there and said, “If God exists, He can prove it. Send me someone, a guide, a sign, whatever.”

The church gasped. Laura wanted to melt into the pew.
Me? I laughed it off. Thought I was hilarious.

But now, with all these gut feelings piling up… yeah.
It didn’t feel so funny anymore.

---

At the office, I found Reed, my best friend and the kind of guy who names his variables after Lord of the Rings characters.

First person I ever talked to here. Now basically family.
I told him everything. The crash. The stairs. The feelings.

He blinked once, then nodded slowly.
“Okay. You’re either developing a sixth sense, or a very specific sleep disorder.”
I squinted. “Sleep disorder?”
“Yeah. Like… prophetic narcolepsy or something.”
I just stared at him.
He shrugged. “Hey, I’m not judging. But fair warning, if you start predicting lottery numbers, I’m quitting this job and becoming your full-time biographer.”

---

He was kidding, but the idea stuck.
So the next morning, I booked an appointment with someone I actually trusted, Dr. McLean.

The calmest woman on Earth. Always in the same gray sweater. Always sipping tea that smelled like cinnamon. Once told me emotions were like storms, and most storms pass.

I laid it all out for her.
The biker. The stairs.
That test back in San Francisco where I blindly guessed and still scored thirty-six out of forty.
The sleepless nights, twelve hours of sleep in a week, and somehow, I wasn’t tired.

She listened, nodded, gave me her usual quiet questions. Then finally said,
“Some things in life don’t have answers, Nick. At least not ones we can see.”

Not the answer I wanted.
I was hoping for Congrats, you’re Spider-Man, not a fortune cookie.

---

That night, I dove into research.
Intuition. Coincidence. Digital signals.

Conspiracy forums about human brains picking up invisible waves, some mix of science and sci-fi.
None of it explained what I felt. Not fully.

There had to be something more.
I’d felt things like this before, back in San Francisco, but I never questioned it. Never chased it.

Now?
I wasn’t letting it go.

I thought the crash was the weirdest thing that would happen that week.
I was wrong.

To Be Continued