Chapter 1
The hallway outside the clinic smelled like lemon disinfectant and wet paper. I stared at the scuff marks on the linoleum tiles while the doctor talked. When he said, "Sometimes these things just resolve on their own," I nodded, and smiled politely.
He didn’t say what these things were.
Another round of bloodwork. Another week of waiting. He offered to refer me to a specialist. Somewhere in the city, three hours away, no guarantee of answers. I said I’d think about it.
By the time I made it back to my car, I felt like I was made of smoke. My limbs didn’t want to hold me. The seatbelt cut into my chest, trying to hold me here. I sat there with the engine off for a long time, forehead against the steering wheel, watching a frustrated teardrop roll down my nose and drop onto my knee.
There’s a kind of tired that sinks under your skin. Past your bones. Like your body is slowly trying to leave you behind.
That’s the kind of tired I was.
By the time I got home, it was almost dark. The porch light buzzed like it always did. Just loud enough to be annoying, not loud enough to fix. It reminded me of how my ears ring when I stand up too fast.
I forgot to check the mail. I always forgot something lately. My coat fell off somewhere between the door and the kitchen, and I didn’t notice until later. When I found it, it was curled like a shed skin.
The fridge light felt too bright when I opened it, like it was trying too hard to show me I didn’t belong there. I stared at a half-empty bottle of juice and a container of something I couldn’t remember buying. The expiration date had passed. I closed the door.
The couch took me in like it had been waiting for me.
I laid down without meaning to. Just to rest, for a moment. Shoes still on. Phone in my hand. I was going to text someone. I don’t remember who now. But the thought slipped sideways, like water off glass. My fingers twitched over the keyboard. Then I blinked, and it was an hour later.
Sleep comes in strange shapes lately.
Not whole nights. Not even naps. Just sudden stretches of nothing.. blackouts with no warning. I wake up in the wrong place. Or with the TV on a channel I don’t remember choosing. Once I found a spoon in my bed.
When I told the doctor, he asked if I’d been under a lot of stress.
I laughed. Not because it was funny. Just because I needed to do something with the breath in my lungs.
The worst part isn’t the memory loss. It’s the fog.
The heavy, pressing cotton between me and everything else. I’ll be talking, and a word will just… leave. Like it was never there. I’ll walk into a room and feel my whole brain seize, like I’ve landed in the middle of a sentence I wasn’t speaking. I forget if I’ve eaten. I forget what day it is. I forget how to hold conversations. People say I look distant. Like I’m staring through them.
But I don’t feel far away. I feel trapped right behind my own eyes, screaming quietly for someone to notice.
And sometimes, when I’m very tired, the world tilts. Not metaphorically. I mean it actually tilts. The floor seems to slant. The lights dim for half a second. The shadows move wrong.
I told the neurologist, and he didnt listen. Didnt hear me. “We’ll keep monitoring it” he said through a polite smile.
Like it’s a weather system.
I don’t know what’s happening to me. But it feels like something’s going away. Something important. Something I need.
And I’m scared I won’t notice until it’s gone.
The shower didn’t help.
I stood under the hot water for ten minutes and still felt cold. My spine ached in that quiet, nagging way it always did now. Not sharp pain.. just pressure. Like gravity had decided to get to know me on an intimate level.
I forgot to bring a towel into the bathroom. Again. That made three times this week. I hurriedly dabbed myself off with the hand towel instead and laughed.. real laughter, kind of hysterical. It echoed too loud in the tiled room, like I was a stranger eavesdropping on myself.
The mirror was fogged, but I could still make out the shape of me. Pale. Damp. A little soft around the edges, like an unfinished sketch. I wiped my hand across the glass. My face stared back at me, slightly delayed. Just enough to make me pause. I blinked. So did she. Still me, I guess.
I made tea but forgot to drink it. I set the mug down on the windowsill while I checked my phone and didn’t touch it again. By the time I noticed, it was cold. I drank it anyway. The bitterness grounded me a little.
The sky had turned lavender outside.. one of those strange spring dusks that feels like the world is about to shift into something else entirely. I leaned my forehead against the glass and let my eyes go unfocused. Somewhere a dog barked. A few cars passed. I could hear the neighbor’s wind chimes arguing with the breeze.
There was a moment.. so brief I almost missed it.. where everything went quiet. Too quiet. Like the whole neighborhood was holding its breath. But then a bird screamed. And I exhaled.
I made myself a peanut butter sandwich for dinner. The bread was stale. The peanut butter was too thick. I ate half of it and gave up.
I checked my voicemail. One from my mom. She always called after doctor visits, even though I rarely had anything new to tell her. She meant well, but her voice always made me feel smaller. Like I’d already failed at getting better. I didn’t call her back.
Lately, I keep thinking I’m going to sit on a dog that isn’t there. The kind of fear that catches just beneath the ribs.. a flash of panic, a shift in weight, the ghost of fur under my hand. I’m not sure why. I haven’t had a dog in years.
I checked the locks before bed. I always do, but I don’t always remember doing it. So I do it again. And again. Just in case. There’s comfort in the click of the deadbolt. In the way the chain slides home.
My sheets were tangled. My pillow had fallen to the floor. I curled up without fixing anything. It felt like I’d already disturbed the nest. No point pretending I hadn’t.
My limbs buzzed in that weird way they do when I’m too tired to sleep. I stared at the ceiling and counted the fan blades. Five.
My last thought before I finally drifted off was: I hope tomorrow is different.
Not even better. Just different.
The morning came slowly, pressing itself into the corners of the room like fog seeping under a door. I knew it was morning not because of the light.. there wasn’t much of it.. but because of the sound of the garbage truck groaning down the street, and the distinct, faraway whine of children not wanting to go to school, faint through the walls.
I didn’t move at first. I just lay there, limbs heavy and joints aching, as if I’d spent the night sleepwalking across gravel. My throat felt tight. My fingers tingled. There was a pulse behind my eyes like something trying to get out.
I sat up too fast. I always do. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself not to. My vision blacked out almost immediately, the edges closing in like a lens cap, and for a moment, I was aware only of the sound of my heart slamming against my ribs. I put my head between my knees and breathed through my mouth. Counted the way they taught me. Focused on something.. anything.. other than the pressure building in my ears.
Eventually, the color bled back in. The world steadied. But my chest still felt wrong. Like the rhythm was off. Like it was trying to dance to a beat that didn’t belong to it anymore.
I made it to the kitchen on unsteady feet and drank a glass of water too fast, like it might save me. It didn’t. I had to sit on the floor again, my back against the cabinet, knees drawn up. The tile was cold beneath me. My legs buzzed with that hollow, vibrating feeling that comes right before a faint.
I told myself I’d try again in ten minutes. Then I blinked, and it was almost noon.
I drank another glass, slower this time, and managed to stay upright. I turned on the kitchen light, then immediately turned it off. Too harsh. Everything was too harsh. The fridge buzzed like a power line. The faucet handle clicked too loudly. The hum of the world was just a little too much.
I wandered into the living room and sat on the couch with my hands in my lap, watching dust float through the sunlight from the window. It looked like snow. Or maybe stars. Everything felt too bright and too dim at the same time. I turned the TV on for noise, but the voices made my skin crawl. I muted it and left the screen flashing in silence.
There’s this feeling I get sometimes.. like I’m just a few seconds behind everyone else. Not enough to notice at first, but enough to fall out of step. People laugh and I smile without knowing why. Someone says my name and I blink like I’m trying to remember who that is. It’s like living underwater.
I got a text from someone. I read it twice and still couldn’t figure out what it meant. I didn’t reply.
I scrolled aimlessly, my thumb moving without thought. Articles, memes, pictures of people who looked too awake. I watched a video of a woman making soup. Her hands moved so surely. Her voice was calm. She said, “You’ll want to stir it gently here.” I cried and didn’t know why.
The day passed without me in it.
I must have eaten something. I remember dishes in the sink. I remember rinsing out a cup and then not being able to find it five minutes later.
When the sun began to set, I finally opened the window. The breeze smelled like something damp and green. I stood there, arms resting on the sill, and felt the ache of the world keep turning without me.
I thought about walking. Just down the street, barefoot maybe, no plan. But I knew I’d get tired halfway and have to sit down in someone’s yard. I imagined the headlines: Confused Woman Found Sitting in Ditch with Eyes Closed, Whispering Curses at the Old Gods.
Instead, I sat on the porch steps and watched the sky change. That was enough. That had to be enough.
I told myself I’d try again tomorrow.
The next day started in the late afternoon. I woke up on the couch, though I remembered going to bed. My legs were curled awkwardly beneath me. My arm had gone completely numb. I’d been drooling. The TV was still on, muted, cycling through the same local ad every fifteen minutes. It was for a used car dealership. I knew that because the man on screen kept smiling without blinking, holding a balloon, pointing at prices that didn’t matter.
My mouth tasted metallic. My eyes felt grainy. I tried to sit up, but my whole body protested. I didn’t feel like I’d slept. I felt like I’d been pressed under something heavy and wet. Like someone had buried me and then changed their mind halfway through.
I eventually got up. I moved slowly. Deliberately. Like the air was syrup. Everything I touched felt slightly too textured.. like the fabric of my robe, the ceramic of the mug, the skin on my face. I looked at my reflection in the microwave door and didn’t recognize my own posture. My shoulders were too high. My neck too stiff.
I made oatmeal. Stirred it. Let it sit too long. Ate it lukewarm and without tasting it. Halfway through the bowl, I realized I hadn’t put any water in the pan for my tea. I’d just stood in the kitchen with the stove on, watching nothing boil. Eating almost cold oatmeal.
I went back to the couch. Curled up. Scrolled again. News headlines. Recipes I’d never try. Videos of people building things with their hands: tables, walls, gardens. I watched a man carve a spoon out of driftwood and found myself crying again.
I didn’t feel sad. I just felt open. Like my skin had gotten thinner, and the world was leaking in.
By evening, I tried to go for a walk. I made it down the porch steps before I started feeling dizzy. The air was heavy with moisture. The kind that clings to your lungs. The sky was purple-gray and twitching with the threat of rain.
I stood in the yard and waited to feel normal again. I thought maybe if I breathed in deeply enough, I could reset something. But all it did was make my ribs ache.
I heard wind chimes down the block and couldn’t tell if they were mine.
There was a moment.. barely anything.. where I thought I saw something move at the edge of my vision. Something low to the ground. Quick. Small. But when I turned, there was nothing. Just the base of the mailbox. A few weeds. The dark shape of my neighbor’s garbage bins.
Still, I stared. I waited for it to happen again.
It didn’t.
I went back inside. The lock clicked shut behind me with a little too much finality. I drew the curtains. I turned the TV off. I didn’t want to see the balloon man again.
I sat on the edge of the bed and tried to remember what day it was. I couldn’t. I tried to remember what I’d done yesterday. Nothing came to mind.
The sensation didn’t feel urgent. Just quietly terrifying. Like slipping under ice and watching the sky from below.
I turned out the light and lay down. My chest hurt. My legs buzzed. I stared at the ceiling and counted the fan blades.
Five. There are always five. But some nights I have to check.
I woke up in bed this time. That was new.
The light outside the window looked washed out, like it had been diluted. I wasn’t sure if it was early morning or late afternoon. My phone was dead. I didn’t remember forgetting to charge it. I didn’t remember a lot of things lately.
My mouth tasted stale. My head felt wrapped in cotton. My arms ached, like I’d been holding them tense in my sleep. My jaw hurt, too. I’d been grinding again.
I sat up slowly, testing my balance. The room swayed just slightly, like a boat in still water. I waited for the nausea to pass, then stood and shuffled to the bathroom.
The mirror was fogged again.
I hadn’t taken a shower. I hadn’t even run the sink yet. Still, the glass was blurred at the center, as if someone had been standing there just moments ago, breathing close. I wiped it with the back of my hand and frowned at the uneven smear it left behind.
I looked tired. More than tired. My eyes had that glossy, not-all-there look I remembered from visiting relatives in hospital beds. My skin was dull. My lips pale. I tried to smile at myself, just to see if it looked real. It didn’t. It looked like I was trying to convince someone else I was fine.
I brushed my teeth slowly. Forgot the bottom row. Started over. I kept zoning out mid motion.. standing there with the toothbrush in my mouth, staring at nothing. It was like being rebooted every few minutes.
In the kitchen, I reached for the same mug I always used and found it already in the sink. A faint ring of something clung to the inside. Tea? I hadn’t made tea in days. I rinsed it out, dried it with a towel that smelled like dish soap and mold, and filled it again with water.
I sat at the table and drank it slowly, staring out the window. The neighbor’s garbage bins were still at the curb. Had it been trash day yesterday? Or was that today? I felt a brief flash of panic, like I’d forgotten something important. Then it faded. Like everything else.
I tried to write a list. Groceries, things to do, appointments to make. My handwriting looked unfamiliar. Slanted wrong. I couldn’t remember the last time I wrote anything that wasn’t a note to myself.
I wrote: Call Mom.
Then crossed it out.
Then wrote it again.
The sound of my own pen on paper was almost too loud.
I stood up, forgetting why, and wandered into the living room. The TV was on. I hadn’t turned it on. The volume was down low, just low enough to be unintelligible. I stared at it for a long time, unsure what channel it was, unsure how long it had been playing.
The weather was on. Or maybe traffic. The man on screen was pointing at a map. I watched his hand move and realized I was holding my phone in my own hand now. I didn’t remember picking it up.
I turned the screen over, expecting it to be off. It was unlocked. Open to the camera app. The front-facing lens stared back at me. Jumpscare.
I locked it and set it facedown.
The light changed while I wasn’t paying attention. When I looked outside again, it was darker. That in-between shade, where everything goes blue and flat and a little unreal. The kind of light that makes shadows stretch wrong and corners lose their shape.
I went to plug in my phone and found the charger already connected. The phone flicked to life the moment I set it down.. 31%, somehow. Not dead, not charged. Just… waiting. I didn’t remember plugging it in. I didn’t remember unplugging it, either.
There were two missed calls. One from a number I didn’t recognize. One from my mom.
The first one didn’t leave a message. The second one did. She sounded cautious. Like she was choosing each word carefully, the way you do when you're talking to someone you think might be on the verge of something. She asked if I got my test results. If I’d had anything to eat. If I could call her back when I had the energy.
She said, “I just want to hear your voice.”
I didn’t call her back. I didn’t feel like my voice belonged to me right now.
I put on a sweater and realized too late it was the same one I’d worn yesterday. Maybe the day before. It smelled like old perfume and something faintly bitter. I sniffed the collar, trying to place it. Then I stopped. There was no reason for it to smell like anything. I hadn’t gone anywhere.
The fridge was louder than usual. Or maybe I was just more sensitive to it. The hum was low and metallic, a kind of pulsing vibration that settled into the back of my skull. I opened the door and stared inside. There was a jar of mustard. Some cheese. A takeout container I didn’t remember ordering. I didn’t open it. I just stood there for a long moment, letting the cold air curl around my ankles.
Eventually, I shut the door.
The light in the hallway flickered when I passed under it. Just once. A single, almost apologetic blink. I froze, heart in my throat. Then it stopped. I stood there for a while, waiting to see if it would happen again. It didn’t.
When I made it back to the living room, the TV was off.
I hadn’t turned it off.
But I told myself I had. I must have. I stood there with the remote still on the couch cushion, untouched, and told myself I must have pressed it without realizing.
The silence felt deeper than it should’ve. Like the house had been holding its breath, waiting for me to notice something.
I didn’t want to sit down. I didn’t want to stand. I didn’t want to go to bed. I walked in slow circles for a while, touching the backs of chairs, the edges of counters, counting light switches with the pads of my fingers like they might anchor me.
Eventually, I gave in. I sat on the floor. Cross-legged. Palms resting on my knees. Breathing. Trying to remember what normal felt like. Not even happiness. Just clarity. A sharp edge. A clean moment.
The hum returned. Not the fridge this time. Somewhere else. A softer sound. Almost like singing.
I told myself it was just the pipes.
I told myself it was nothing.
I made toast because I hadn’t eaten. At least, I didn’t think I had. I wasn’t hungry, but I never really was anymore. Hunger had turned into this distant, abstract idea. A suggestion more than a sensation. Like remembering to feed a plant because the soil looks dry.
I stood in the kitchen with one hand on the counter, watching the toaster glow orange, then fade. I spread butter on the bread and stared at it like it might explain something to me.
I chewed slowly. Mechanical. I couldn’t tell if it tasted like anything. I swallowed it because I knew I was supposed to. That’s all it was now. Just one more thing I was supposed to do. Like brushing my teeth. Like answering texts. Like existing.
I drank water because the internet said it would help. Every symptom I typed into the search bar came back with the same advice: drink more water, get more sleep, reduce stress.
I was practically drowning in water. I was sleeping twelve hours a day and still waking up exhausted. I had peeled my life back to the bare minimum and still couldn’t find any silence in my head.
I stared at the empty glass in my hand and tried to remember how many times I’d filled it today. Once? Three times? I couldn’t be sure. I rinsed it out again just to be safe. Filled it again and took another sip. It didn’t make me feel better. But I didn’t know what would.
I opened the fridge a few minutes later and reached for the same glass. It wasn’t there. I checked the counter. Still in my hand.
I laughed. Not because it was funny. Just because it was something to do.
I sat down with the glass in my lap and stared at the far wall until my legs went numb.
I woke up with a headache so thick it felt like it had been braided into my skull.
The light through the window was pale and colorless. Not morning light. Not quite afternoon. The kind of light that doesn’t tell you anything. I blinked against it, trying to find my bearings.
I was still in yesterday’s clothes. My legs tangled in the sheets like I’d fought something in my sleep. My jaw ached. I must have been grinding again. I always did when I was stressed. Lately, that meant always.
I sat up slowly, breathing through the dizziness, and checked my phone out of habit. No new messages. One from the day before that I hadn’t answered. I thought about responding. Just something short. But I couldn’t remember what we’d last talked about, and the idea of pretending felt too heavy.
I drank water. Ate a granola bar even though the texture made me want to gag. The taste barely registered, but I forced it down. I told myself it would help. It always helped, supposedly. Enough salt to keep me upright. Enough hydration to pretend I was fine.
I washed the wrapper down the sink drain instead of throwing it away. I didn’t notice until I heard it catch in the disposal.
Everything felt a little misaligned.
I turned on the TV and muted it. Let the movement keep me company without asking anything from me. I didn’t sit on the couch. I paced. I picked up my keys and set them back down. I refilled my glass and forgot where I left it.
I started writing a to-do list and couldn’t finish it. I stared at the paper until the words looked wrong. I crossed out the whole thing and tossed it in the trash, then immediately forgot what I’d written in the first place.
By late afternoon, I was back in bed with a blanket pulled over my head, not sleeping, not thinking. Just… dim. Like the bulb had been unscrewed halfway.
The only sound was the fridge cycling on and off. The occasional creak of the house settling. Something like wind. Or maybe a distant engine. Or maybe nothing at all.
I told myself I’d try again tomorrow.
Then I lay very still, just listening.
And for a few seconds, I swore I could hear something humming. Not a voice. Not music. Just a sound.
Soft. Low. Familiar.
And then it was gone.
