Amara's throat tightened as if a fist had closed around it. The world tilted, a slow, queasy spin that left her blinking hard against the damp light. The last echoes of that, whatever it was, hallway or dream or memory, still clung like static to the edges of her sight.
"I… I'm fine," she said, the words thick and reluctant, meant as much for herself as for Ruth. They stuck to her tongue like syrup.
Ruth's brow furrowed, the tiny crease between her eyes deepening. "You sure? You don't look..."
"I'm fine," Amara cut in, sharper this time, the sound cracking like a snapped twig.
Her hand tightened on Milo's leash until the woven nylon bit into her palm. The sting was almost welcome, something measurable, something real. Milo gave a soft, uneasy whine and shifted his paws, ears flicking back toward her.
"I should… um… I have to go." The sentence tumbled out in a rush.
Ruth took a small step forward, her expression steady. "Wait..."
But Amara was already moving, sneakers skidding on the wet pavement as she pivoted.
Her name floated after her once, twice, soft but clear. "Amara… Amara." The sound felt too bright against the sudden roar in her ears.
The sidewalk pitched beneath her like a ship deck. Was that real? Her mind scrambled for an answer. Am I sick? The thought sliced through the fog like a shard of glass. She clenched her jaw and kept walking.
The leash burned against her palm as Milo trotted ahead, sensing her urgency. Her heart thudded in uneven bursts, a quick-stutter rhythm that made her ribs ache. Every ordinary sound slammed into her: the whoosh of a passing cyclist, the wet hiss of tires on asphalt, a car door thudding shut half a block away. Each noise arrived too loud, too sharp, as though the world had been dialed up without warning.
She tried to steady her breath. In, two-three. Out, two-three. But the air refused to settle in her lungs.
It wasn't real. It can't be real. She repeated the words like a litany, matching them to her steps.
A man across the street shook rain from a folded newspaper, the sudden motion snagging at the corner of her vision like the flicker she'd just escaped. Her stomach lurched. She forced her eyes forward.
The neighborhood blurred into damp grays and browns: wet brick, sagging gutters, the slick silver of the street. She named what she could see, cut grass in a side yard, the rhythmic patter of Milo's paws, the faint warmth of the leash handle against her skin each detail a thread holding her to the present.
Behind her, she imagined Ruth still standing by the mailbox, steady and small, watching with that careful gaze. Would she follow? Call again? Amara didn't dare look back.
What if she saw it too? The thought startled her, almost absurd enough to laugh. If Ruth had seen, she would have said something, wouldn't she? The silence behind her said otherwise.
A gust of wind swept through, carrying the metallic scent of oncoming rain. Her hair lifted and fell across her cheek. She brushed it away with a trembling hand and turned the corner toward the main road.
Each step bought her a little distance from the corner lot, but not from the vision. The image of that hallway impossibly real, impossibly there flashed again at the edges of her mind: bright white walls, a door at the far end half-open, the smell of antiseptic she couldn't quite place.
She tightened her grip on the leash. "Come on, Milo," she murmured, though the dog was already moving briskly, tail up, as if he too sensed the need to keep going. Not home, she reminded herself. Just forward.
She clung to the plan: package first, then the courier for the manuscript, then basil from the little market on Ash Street. Ordinary tasks. Necessary tasks. If she kept moving, the morning might stitch itself back into shape.
But stitching required thread, and her mind kept snagging on the same frayed places. Was that hallway something she'd seen before? A hospital she'd once visited, a dream she'd forgotten until it ambushed her? The antiseptic smell lingered in memory, acrid and cold. She could almost hear the faint beep of machines beneath the patter of rain.
Her breath finally began to even, the pounding in her ears softening to a dull throb. She fixed on the rhythm of her feet left, right, left; the steady cadence of someone with a destination, though she didn't let herself name it beyond the next turn. The repetition steadied her, a slow reclaiming of the ordinary.
But her thoughts kept circling like restless birds. If the mind can conjure something that vivid, how do you know when it stops being imagination? She pictured Dr. Keene, the calm way he always folded his hands before speaking during morning rounds, and tried to borrow his voice: Stress plays tricks. Sleeplessness, caffeine, the weather. Your brain fills gaps with familiar images. That's all this is.
The words helped for a breath, then faltered. Or maybe it was real. Maybe you just stepped back before anyone else could see.
A ripple of dizziness swept through her again. She forced her focus outward: the gleam of rain on a parked sedan, the faint scent of yeast drifting from a bakery down the block, the gritty scrape of her sneakers on the slick sidewalk. Details, proof.
By the time she reached the corner where the maple tree arched over the street, she risked a glance back. Ruth was no longer in sight. The mailbox stood alone, damp and unremarkable, the street beyond quiet. No witness. No sign that anything had happened at all.
The absence should have calmed her. Instead, it hollowed her out. She swallowed hard, throat tight, as if the missing figure were more ominous than a visible one.
Milo paused to sniff a puddle, droplets trembling on his whiskers. He glanced up, dark eyes catching hers for an instant. A tether, small but grounding. She tightened her hold on the leash, not enough to pull, just enough to feel the pulse of another heartbeat linked to her own.
"Almost there," she told him, though the words were as much for herself. Almost where? The post office, the courier, the market, the simple errands she'd chosen as anchors. She would finish them. She had to finish them.
The rhythm of their steps grew steadier. The city sounds softened to a manageable hum. Rain began to fall in a thin, even sheet, cool against her heated skin. She let it wash over her, willing it to carry away the lingering image of that impossible hallway, the sterile scent that still clung like a phantom at the back of her throat.
She did not look back again. Forward was all that mattered. The plan was still there package, courier, basil and she repeated it silently with every measured breath, as if the list itself were a spell that could keep the world from blinking again.