Chapter Text
Daniela always started her day the same way.
She checked the exhibits, even the ones she had memorised a hundred times. Not because they changed often, but because sometimes she couldn’t remember if they had.
The museum was still half asleep when she arrived. The air was cold, the hallways quiet, the faint hum of the lights buzzing overhead.
Daniela liked it like this. Quiet things were easier to remember.
She hastily set her backpack down behind the counter, shoving the broken straps back into the ripped holes. She would fix those later.
Fighting with the worn zip, she opened the bag and pulled out her drink bottle, a paper bag containing her lunch, and a small notebook with dinosaur footprints running down the spine.
Daniela wouldn’t quite refer to it as a diary, but rather… a remember book.
Something to help her recall the previous day. Her feelings, the people she met, the next time there were free donuts in the staff room. You know. The important things.
Each morning, she clocked in early, much to the approval of her manager, and read through her account of the previous day, hoping she wouldn’t have to face the embarrassment of forgetting the name of the trainee she had been working with for the past two weeks. Or something equally inconvenient.
The new intern, Lexi, was nice, Daniela supposed. She wouldn’t call them friends, but she was nice to have around.
Right on cue, the main doors of the museum swung open, followed by the shrill wail of an alarm.
“What the—” Daniela’s eyes widened as Lexi tumbled through the doors.
“Daniela! Hey! What’s the code?”
The code. The alarm blared louder as she cupped her hands over her ears.
“Daniela, what’s the code?” she echoed under her breath.
“Dani!” Lexi’s voice was sharp now, threaded with panic.
The code. The code. The pin code.
Daniela’s gaze darted around the room before landing on the sprawling brachiosaurus skeleton, its long neck arching across the exhibit.
She remembered.
The brachiosaurus has approximately 365 bones.
There are 365 days in a year. Except on a leap year, where there are 366.
Three hundred and sixty-five multiplied by three hundred and sixty-six was…
“Lexi, are you listening?”
The trainee nodded quickly.
“The code is 1, 3, 3, 5, 9, 0!” Daniela shouted over the alarm.
A pause.
Then silence.
Daniela didn’t lower her hands straight away. The quiet settled slowly, like dust. For a moment, she wasn’t sure if she had gotten it right.
Then she exhaled, her shoulders loosening.
Lexi laughed, a short, breathless sound. “Oh my God. You always do that.”
Daniela blinked. “Do what?”
“That thing,” Lexi said, gesturing vaguely toward the skeleton. “Where you just… stare at a dinosaur and suddenly know things.”
Daniela glanced back at the brachiosaurus.
“I don’t suddenly know things,” she said, a little defensively. “I just… remember them differently.”
Lexi gave her a look like she didn’t fully understand, but wasn’t going to question it either. “Well, it’s kind of terrifying. But useful.”
Daniela nodded, like that made sense.
Useful was good.
The alarm panel blinked quietly by the door, as if nothing had happened at all.
“I thought you said you knew the code,” Lexi added.
“I do,” Daniela said automatically.
She hesitated.
“I just don’t always know that I know it.”
Lexi frowned slightly at that, but before she could respond, Daniela had already turned away.
Routine.
She needed to get back to routine.
She walked past the counter, past the gift shop entrance, and back into the main exhibit hall. The brachiosaurus stood where it always did, massive and unmoving, its shadow stretching across the polished floor.
Daniela tilted her head, studying it.
Still the same.
Good.
She moved on, checking the smaller displays next. A placard slightly crooked. A fossil replica not quite aligned with its label. Tiny things, barely noticeable.
But she noticed.
She always noticed.
Back at the counter, she picked up her notebook again and flipped it open. The last entry stared back at her in neat, careful handwriting.
She didn’t read it yet.
Instead, she turned to a fresh page and wrote:
Alarm triggered. Lexi panicked. I remembered the code.
She paused, pen hovering above the paper.
Then, underneath, smaller:
Used the brachiosaurus again.
Daniela tapped the pen lightly against the page.
After a moment, she added one more line.
I think that means it’s important.
She stared at that for a second longer than necessary before closing the notebook.
Behind her, Lexi called out, “Hey, heads up, we’ve got a school group coming in later. Like, a big one.”
Daniela nodded without turning around.
“Okay.”
She reached for her bag, tucking the notebook carefully back inside like it was something fragile.
A school group.
She would probably have to introduce herself. Answer questions. Remember names.
Daniela frowned slightly.
She should write that down.
She pulled the notebook back out, flipping to the page she had just written.
Underneath everything else, she added:
Students coming today. Try to remember them.
She hesitated again, pen hovering.
Then, almost as an afterthought:
Especially if they come back.
Daniela closed the notebook.
The museum was quiet again. Still. Unchanged.
She looked out over the exhibits one more time, her eyes tracing the familiar shapes, the bones, the structures she trusted to stay where they were.
Then she turned back to her work.
Just in case something had changed.