CHAPTER 2
I wake up burning, not hot burning. My eyes snap open, but for a few seconds, I can’t see anything. There’s smoke everywhere; thick black clouds curling around me until my lungs tighten. I cough and reach blindly in front of me. “Maven?” Nothing. “Maven!” My voice doesn’t even sound right. It’s too small. I look down. Bare feet. Tiny hands. A white dress stained with dirt and something dark near them. What the fuck? A scream cuts through the smoke. I spin toward it, but there’s nothing there except fire. Green fire. It crawls along the sides of buildings I don’t recognize, twisting unnaturally against the night. Above me, the sky is wrong, very wrong. Pink. Orange. Purple. Colors bleeding together like someone cracked the heavens open and forgot how to put them back.
My heart pounds against my ribs. I know this place. The thought comes so quickly that I almost miss it, but I don’t. I know this place. I don’t know how. Someone grabs my shoulders. I scream. A woman is kneeling in front of me. I can’t see her face. No matter how hard I try to focus on it, there’s nothing there. Just blurred features behind strands of dark hair. But I know her too. Something is gnawing at me internally, telling me it knows her. My chest aches so violently that I reach for her without thinking. “Mama?” The word leaves my mouth before I can stop it.
Her hands tighten around my arms. Her lips move; I can’t hear her. “What?” The ground shakes. “What are you saying?” She pulls me closer. There are tears on her face; I can see them. Just not her. “Please,” I whisper. Her mouth moves again, barely audible; I make out run. Pain explodes across my back. I scream and wake up on the floor.
For a second, I don’t move. I’m staring at the ceiling of my bedroom with my comforter tangled around one leg and my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest. Maven is beside me, whining. “Jesus Christ.” My voice comes out broken. I push myself upright. Everything hurts: my shoulder, my hip. My fucking pride. Apparently, I threw myself out of bed. That’s new! Maven shoves his nose against my chest. “I’m okay,” he whines again. “I’m okay, baby.” I wrap an arm around him, mostly because I’m not entirely convinced. The room is dark except for the faint glow of streetlights slipping through my curtains. Normal. Everything is normal. No smoke, no fire, no screaming. Just my bedroom. My dog. And the sound of my own breathing.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand. 3:17 A.M., of course. Because apparently having a psychotic medieval fever dream at a reasonable hour would be too much to ask. I pull myself back onto the bed and sit against the headboard. Maven climbs up beside me, and immediately presses his entire body against my leg. “Personal space means nothing to you, huh?” His tail thumps once. I smile despite myself. Then my back starts burning; the smile disappears. Slowly, I reach behind me. My fingers brush the skin between my shoulder blades. The scar. I freeze.
It's warm… no, not warm… hot it’s fucking hot. I yank my hand away. In shock, I just sit there, not really sure if that truly happened. Then I touch it again; nothing. Cool skin beneath my fingertips. I stare at the wall in bewilderment. “Okay.” Maven looks at me. “Don’t.” Another tail thump. “I said don’t.” I grab my phone and open Noa’s messages. There are three new ones.
NOA: you alive?
NOA: If you fell asleep without telling me after making me listen to you complain for forty-five minutes, I’m blocking you.
NOA: Lara.
I glance at the timestamp. The last one came through two minutes ago. I type back.
ME: Unfortunately
The typing bubble appears almost immediately.
NOA: WHY ARE YOU AWAKE
I stare at the screen. My fingers hover over the keyboard. Had a nightmare. Delete. Fell out of bed. Delete. Dreamed I was a child in a burning village and some faceless women called me- absolutely fucking not.
ME: Maven kicked me.
I look down at him. “Sorry.” She yawns. My phone buzzes.
NOA: That dog weighs like 40 lbs
ME: And chooses violence.
NOA: Go back to sleep.
ME: Yes, Mom.
NOA: Don’t ever disrespect me like that again.
A laugh slips out before I can stop it. There. Normal. This is normal. I lock my phone and set it beside me. But when I close my eyes, I see green flames. I see tiny hands. I see a woman whose face my own mind refuses to give me. Somewhere beneath all of it, buried so deep I almost convince myself I imagined it, I hear her voice again. Not run this time. Something else, something softer. A name.
I open my eyes. My room silent. Maven is already asleep. I swallow, because whatever name she whispered-
It wasn’t Lara.
You came back. I stared at the curtains. The words had appeared in my head so clearly they almost felt spoken. Almost. I rubbed my palms over my face and let out a slow breath. “Okay.” Maven’s head lifted from my thigh. “I’m fine.” She stared at me. “I am.” Still staring. “Cloud, use a little support here.” Her chin dropped back onto my leg. “Thank you.”
I leaned my head against the wall. You came back. Back from where? The dream? That was the obvious answer. My brain was still half asleep, dragging pieces of whatever nightmare I’d just had into consciousness. It happened. People have heard things when they were falling asleep. Saw things when they were waking up. There was probably a name for it. There was a name for everything.
I reached for my phone. 3:26 a.m. nine minutes. That was all. Somehow it felt like I had been sitting there for hours. I opened my messages and Noa’s name sat near the top. My thumb hovered over it as I typed, you awake? I stared at the words for a few seconds before deleting them.
What was I going to say after that? Hey, remember that weird dream I told you about? Well, it happened again. Except this time there was green fire, my scar started burning, and apparently my subconscious has started leaving cryptic messages. Yeah, no.
I locked my phone and tossed it onto the bed. The room had gone quiet again. Too quiet. I closed my eyes and took one breath, then another. The mattress shifted. My eyes opened. Maven was standing. She wasn’t looking at the window anymore. She was staring toward the bedroom door. Every muscle in my body tightened. “Move.”
Her ears pushed forward. The bedroom door stood partially open, exactly how I’d left it when I stumbled to the bathroom. Nothing moved beyond it. Still, Maven climbed off the bed. “Maven.” She ignored me. Her paws touched the floor without a sound as she moved toward the doorway. I sat straighter. “Mave.” She stopped a few feet before it, and a low growl rolled from her chest. My stomach dropped. I had heard Maven growl before. At dogs outside. At the vacuum. Once at a plastic bag blowing across the sidewalk as if it had personally offended her. This wasn’t that. Her entire body had gone rigid.
There was someone in my apartment. The thought came so quickly that, weirdly, it almost made me feel better. A person. An actual person. That I could deal with. I threw the blankets back and reached toward the nightstand for the first thing my hand found. My phone. I looked down at it. “Great weapon, Lara”
Msven growled again, louder this time. I slid out of bed, the floor cold beneath my feet. “Mave.” One step. Then another. The hallway beyond my bedroom remained dark. I could hear the refrigerator humming from the kitchen, pipes somewhere inside the wall, a car passing outside. Normal sounds. Normal apartment. Normal fucking night. I reached Maven and placed one hand against her back. She’s trembling. That scared me more than the growling. “Maven.”
Her head tilted like she was listening. Then I heard it too. A scrape. Soft. Somewhere beyond the bedroom. I stopped breathing. Another. Closer. My fingers tightened around my phone. “Hello?” Silence. I immediately regretted it. Apparently, if someone broke into my apartment, my survival instinct was to politely let them know exactly where I was. Good to know.
Maven took a step forward, and I grabbed her collar. “No.” She pulled against me. “Maven, no.” Another sound came from the hallway, except this time it wasn’t a scrape. It was a whisper. I froze. It was so faint I couldn’t make out the words. My pulse pounded in my ears as I backed toward the bed, pulling Maven with me. “Nope.” The whisper came again. Closer. I couldn’t understand it. I didn’t want to. My hand shot toward the lamp.
Click. Yellow light flooded the room. Maven barked, and I jumped hard enough that my shoulder hit the wall. And then, nothing. The hallway was empty. No shadow. No movement. No person. Just my apartment.
I stood there gripping Maven’s collar, staring through the doorway. “What the fuck is happening to me?” The question came out quieter than I intended. Maven finally looked at me, and I swallowed. Something was wrong. Not with the apartment.
With me.
I had slept maybe a handful of hours in two days. I was dreaming about places that didn’t exist, hearing words that nobody had spoken, finding meaning in numbers on a clock. And now I was standing barefoot in my bedroom at three in the morning holding my dog back from an empty hallway. I knew what I sounded like. That thought scared me enough that I finally released Maven’s collar. “No.” I wasn’t doing this. I wasn’t going to scare myself into believing something was happening just because I was exhausted. I walked into the hallway, and Maven immediately followed.
“Stay.” She didn’t. “Of course not.” I turned on the hallway light. Nothing. I checked the living room. Nothing. The kitchen. Nothing. The front door was locked, the deadbolt still turned. The windows were closed. The balcony door was locked. Nothing was disturbed. There was no one here.
I stood in the middle of the living room with my arms folded over my chest. “See?” Maven stared toward the hallway behind me. I refused to turn around. “No.” I pointed at her. “You’re making this worse.” Her ears twitched. “Maven.” She looked at me. “Thank you.”
I checked the apartment one more time anyway, then checked the locks again. Just in case. By the time I returned to my bedroom, the clock read 3:41. I left the hallway light on. Not because I was scared. Obviously. It was just - whatever. I climbed back into bed, and Maven followed, pressing herself into my side. This time I didn’t complain. I lay there staring at the ceiling and tried to think about work. Laundry. The fact that I desperately needed groceries. Anything normal.
Every time my thoughts drifted, I saw green flames. Black stone. That impossible sky. And him. The man who had looked at me like he knew me. You came back. I squeezed my eyes shut. “No, I didn’t.” The words flew out; my eyes opened. Silence. I waited. No one answered. Eventually, the darkness beyond my curtains began turning gray. I never fell back asleep.
By the time my alarm went off, I was already staring at my phone. Scrolling mindlessly to try to replace the eerie thoughts swimming around in my head. I shut it off before the first alarm finished. 6:00 a.m. “Fantastic.” Maven was completely passed out beside me now, one paw stretched across my stomach. I looked at her. “Oh, now you sleep.” She didn’t move. I pushed her paw away and dragged myself out of bed. The shower helped, sort of. By the time I was dressed, I had managed to reduce everything from last night into a neat little list of reasonable explanations. And 3:17 was- I paused in front of the mirror.
Coincidence, right? My phone buzzed on the dresser. I picked it up.
NOA: you alive??
Despite everything, I smiled.
ME: Unfortunately
The typing bubble appeared immediately.
NOA: Ew. Don’t be dramatic before coffee.
ME: I didn’t sleep.
NOA: Again????
I stared at the message. Again. Technically, yes. But this felt different. My fingers moved.
ME: I had that dream again.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
NOA: The weird sky one? I hesitated
ME: Yeah.
NOA: okay thats officially creepy.
ME: thank you. Very helpful…
NOA: I’m serious. Same exact dream?
My thumb hovered over the keyboard. Not exactly; there had been more this time. The green fire, the man, the scar, the voice.
You came back. I typed.
ME: mostly.
Her response came immediately.
NOA: Mostly??
I smile despite myself; there she was.
ME: I’ll tell you when I get there.
NOA: Oh absolutely not. You can’t “mostly” me and then drive over here.
ME: Watch me.
NOA: Lara.
ME: Noa.
Noa: I hate you.
ME: coffee.?
A pause. Then:
NOA: already got you one.
My smile widended.
ME: this is why you’re my favorite person.
NOA: I’m your only person.
I stared at the one for a second. She wasn’t entirely wrong.
ME: Still counts.
I shoved my phone into my bag and grabbed my keys. Maven immediately stood. I stopped. “You know you can’t come.” She followed me into the living room. “Mave.” She followed me all the way to the front door. Usually, leaving for work earned me a dramatic sigh at most, maybe a judgmental stare if she thought I should stay home and dedicate my life entirely to her. This was different. Her tail was low, and she stood between me and the door.
I frowned. “What?” She whined. Barely a sound. I crouched and rubbed both hands along the sides of her face. “Hey.” Her eyes stayed fixed on mine. “I’m coming back.” Cold moved through me. My hands stopped. You came back. For a second, neither of us moved, then I stood up. “Nope.”
I grabbed my bag. “We’re not doing creepy shit before seven in the morning.” I kissed the top of her head. “Love you.” I opened the door; Maven didn’t try to follow. She just stood there watching me. I stepped into the hallway and pulled the door closed. Just before it closed, her ears lifted. Not toward me, toward something else behind her. The door clicked shut. I stared at it, my hand moving the doorknob. I almost opened it again. Almost.
Instead, I locked the door and went to work. Fifteen minutes later, I pulled into the employee lot with exactly four minutes to spare. “Plenty of time,” I muttered, even though it absolutely wasn’t. I grabbed my bag, nearly left my phone in the cupholder, went back for it, then speed-walked toward the building while trying to convince myself that speed-walking was somehow more dignified than running.
By the time I made it through security and pushed into the communications center, I had two minutes left. Noa was already at her station. Of course she was. She sat sideways in her chair with one leg tucked beneath her, dark hair piled on top of her head in a way that probably took fifteen seconds but somehow looked intentional. Two coffees sat beside her keyboard.
She looked up the second she saw me. Her smile disappeared. “Oh.” I stopped. “Good morning to you too.”
“No, babe.” “What?” “You look terrible.”
I put a hand over my chest. “And here I was thinking you missed me.”
“I did.” She picked up one of the coffees and held it toward me. “Then you walked in looking like the girl who dies first in a horror movie.” I took the cup. “You’re such a good friend.”
“I bought you coffee.” “That is currently the only thing keeping this friendship alive.” “Seven years reduced to caffeine. Tragic.” I took a sip. Caramel. Extra shot. Exactly how I liked it. I pointed the cup at her. “Okay. Friendship renewed.” “ I knew you’d come crawling back.”
I dropped my bag beside my station and sank into my chair. For the first time since waking up at 3: 17, something in my shoulders loosened. This was normal. Noa was normal. The constant hum of voices around us was normal. Keyboards clicking. Phones ringing. Radios cutting in and out. Someone three stations over complaining that the printer was jammed again. This I understood. Noa rolled her chair toward me. “So?”
I kept my eyes on my computer as it loaded. “No.” “I haven’t even asked anything.”
“You were going to.” “You don’t know that.”
I looked at her and smiled. “You’re annoying.”
“And yet I’m your only friend.”
“You keep saying that like you’re proud of it.”
“I worked hard to eliminate the competition.”
I laughed, but she didn’t. Not this time. Her eyes moved over my face. “Lara.”
There it was. That tone. I looked away. “What happened?’
“Nothing.”
“You texted me that you had the dream again.”
“I did.” “And?”
“And I had a dream.”
“Lara.”
“Noa.”
She stared at me. I lasted maybe four seconds.
“Fine.”
She rolled closer, and I lowered my voice. “It was the same place.”
“The weird sky?”
I nodded. “Purple. Too many stars. The moon was…” I searched for the right word. “Wrong.”
“Wrong how?”
“Too big. Too close. I don’t know. It was a dream.”
“And the fire?”
My fingers tightened around the coffee cup. “Green.” Noa’s eyebrows lifted. “Still?”
“Still.” She waited. I knew she was waiting for the mostly part. “There was someone there this time.” Her expression changed. “A person?” “A man.”
“Hot?”
I stared at her. “What? Details matter.”
“I hate you.” “Was he?”
“That’s not the point.”
“That wasn’t a no.”
“Noa.” She grinned. “Fine. Continue.” I shook my head, but some of the tension left my chest. “He knew me.” Her smile faded. “Did he say your name?” I hesitated. “No.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Noa studied me for a second longer than I liked. “And then?”
“I woke up.”
“And?” “And what?”
“The mostly, Lara.” Damn it. I sighed. “I woke up at 3:17.”
“Okay.”
“I woke up at 3:17 yesterday too.” Noa’s expression shifted slightly. “Exactly?”
“Exactly. I repeated.
“That’s weird.”
“Thank you.”
“No, I mean actually weird.”
“I know.”
“Maybe your body’s waking itself up at the same time.”
“That’s what I’m telling myself.”
“What else?”
I looked at her. She knew me too well. “My scar hurt.”
“What scar?”
I touched the back of my thigh. “The lightning one.”
“The one you’ve had forever?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you mean it hurt?”
“I don’t know, it was hot.” Noa blinked. “Hot?”
“Like someone had a heating pad under my skin.”
“Lara.”
“I know.”
“Did you look at it?”
“It was red.”
“Okay, that’s not dream shit. That’s doctor shit.” A laugh escaped me. “Thank you, Dr. Noa.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. If it happens again, I’ll get it checked.” She narrowed her eyes. “Promise?”
“Promise.” She held out her pinky. I stared at it. “Are we twelve?”
“Pinky.” I hooked mine around hers. “Happy?”
“Extremely.” I pulled my hand back. Noa was quiet for a moment before leaning against her desk. “You know your birthday is coming up.” I groaned. “Oh, my God.”
“What?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I didn’t even say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was going to ask what you want to do.”
“Nothing.”
“No.”
“You asked.”
“And you answered incorrectly.”
“Noa.”
“You’re turning twenty-nine.”
“I’m aware.”
“Last year of your twenties.”
“Thank you for reminding me that death approaches.”
“Dramatic.”
“I learned from you.” She leaned back in her chair. “We’re doing something.”
“We can go to dinner.”
“That’s depressing.”
“I like dinner.”
“You like going home by nine and watching TV with Maven.”
“Maven doesn’t interrupt me.”
“Maven doesn’t talk.”
“Exactly.” Noa flipped me off, and I smiled. “Dinner.”
“Dinner and drinks.”
“One drink.”
“Three.”
“Two.”
“Done.” I frowned. “You agreed too fast.”
“Too late.” Before I could argue, the line at my station lit up. Noa pushed away from my desk. “Saved by somebody else’s emergency.” I slipped my headset on. “Story of my life.” And just like that, the morning began.
Calls had a rhythm to them. People like to imagine emergency dispatch as constant screaming, sirens, and life - or - death decisons, but most shifts weren’t like that. They can come in waves. Some serious. Some ridiculous. Some that made you wonder how the person on the other end had survived as long as they had. But they all needed the same thing from me. Calm.
A woman called because her neighbor’s dog had been barking for nearly an hour. A man reported a fender bender in a grocery store parking lot. An elderly woman couldn’t get her husband off the bathroom floor after he’d slipped getting out of the shower. That one stayed with me, not because it was unusual, but because of the way she kept apologizing.
“Ma’am, you don’t need to apologize to me. You’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to do.”
“He’s embarrassed.”
“I understand. Help is already on the way.”
“Can you stay with me?” I looked at the timer. “I’m right here.” So I stayed. I listened while she talked to her husband and kept her calm until the paramedics arrived. When I finally heard another voice in the background announce themselves, some of the tension left my shoulders. “They’re with you now, okay?”
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
“You’re welcome.” The call disconnected, and I sat back. This is why I liked this job. There were rules here. Someone needed help; I found out where they were. I figured out what was happening. I sent someone who could help. Problem. Solution. Real things with real people.
Noa rolled past my desk a while later and dropped a granola bar beside my keyboard without saying anything. I looked at it, then at her. “Eat.”
“Yes, Mom.”
She pointed two fingers at her eyes, then at me. I opened it.
The next few hours passed normally. So, normally in fact, that sometime around midmorning I realized I hadn’t thought about the dream in almost an hour. Then my line lit again. I clicked into it automatically. “911, what’s the address of your emergency?”
Nothing. I glanced at the screen. Connected. “911, can you hear me?” Breathing. Faint. Fast. “Hello?” A woman’s voice finally answered. “Yes.”
“What’s the address of your emergency?”
“I don’t know.” My fingers settle over the keyboard. “Okay, that’s all right. Can you tell me your name?” Silence. “Ma’am?”
“I don’t know where I am.” Her voice trembled, and I straightened.
“Okay. We’re going to figure that out together. Are you hurt?”
Another pause. “No.”
“Do you see any buildings? Street signs? Anything with a name on it?”
“No.”
I began working on the location data attached to the call. “That’s okay. Tell me what you see.” The woman breathed into the phone. For several seconds, she said nothing. Then. “It’s dark.”
“Are you inside or outside?”
“Outside.”
“Okay look around for me. Do you see a road?”
“No.”
“Houses?”
“No.”
“Cars?”
“No.” Something about her breathing changed. “Oh my God.” My fingers stopped.
“What?”
“The sky.” A chill moved over my arms. I forced myself to keep trying. “What about the sky?’
“It looks wrong.”
The communications center seemed to disappear around me. No. I stared at my screen. Coincidence. People said weird things every day. “What do you mean by wrong?”
“I don’t know.” The woman began crying. “There are too many.”
My mouth went dry. “Too many what?”
“Stars.” My hands went cold. Across the room, someone laughed. A radio cackled. Noa was typing at her station. Everything around me continued moving. “Ma’am, I need you to stay calm.”
“They’re everywhere.”
I swallowed. “Can you tell me what color the sky is?” Why did I ask that? The question wasn’t necessary. It wasn’t part of anything I needed to know. But it was already out. The woman went silent. My heart slammed once against my ribs. “Ma’am?”
“Purple.”
I stopped breathing. No. My eyes lifted slowly toward Noa. She wasn’t looking at me. “ is there anything else around you?”
“I can’t-“ The line cracked.
“Ma’am?”
“Something’s burning.” My scar pulsed with heat. Once. I jerked in my chair. “Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“What is burning?”
“I can’t see.” Her breathing became frantic.
“Ma’am, listen to me. I need you to stay where you are. We’re trying to locate you.”
“No.”
“What?”
“No, no, no.”
“What do you see?” Silence. Then she whispered, “there’s someone here.” Every hair on my arms stood. “Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you describe them?” The line cracked again.
“A woman.” My pulse roared in my ears. “Do you know her?”
“No.”
“Is she coming toward you?” The caller began crying harder. “No.” I exhaled. Then she said, “She isn’t moving.” Something inside me tightened. “Can you see her face?”
“No.”
“Why not?” The answer came so quietly I almost didn’t hear it.
“She’s too far away.” A burst of static tore through my headset. I flinched. “Ma’am?” Nothing. “Ma’am, can you hear me?” Static. Then, “She sees me.” The call disconnected.
I stared at the screen. For a second, I forgot where I was. The call timer had stopped, and location data finally populated. I dispatched it. Training took over before my brain caught up. Coordinates. Officers. Welfare check. Possible disoriented caller. My hands knew what to do. The rest of me didn’t
“Lara?” I looked up. Noa was staring at me from her station. “What?” She frowned. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” The word came automatically. Her eyes dropped toward my hands. I followed them; they were shaking. I tucked them beneath the desk. “Difficult caller.” Noa’s expression told me she didn’t believe that was all of it, but another line lit up at her station. She pointed at me. We’re talking later. I looked away. For the next twenty minutes, I watched the dispatch notes. Officers arrived at the location. Nothing. No stranded woman. No fire. No sign that anyone had been there at all.
Eventually the call was cleared; unable to locate. I stared at those words. Unable to locate. “Okay.” Noa’s voice came from behind me, and I jumped. “Jesus.”
“That’s twice today you’ve looked like you’re about to crawl out of your own skin.”
“I’m tired.”
“Bullshit.” She pulled an empty chair beside mine. “What happened?” I glanced around. “Nothing.”
“Lara.”
I lowered my voice. “The caller was lost.”
“Okay.”
“She didn’t know where she was.”
“That happens.”
“I know.” I swallowed. “She described my dream.” Noa didn’t say anything. I looked at her. “All of it?”
“Enough.” Her expression had gone completely serious. “What did she say?”
“The sky.” Noa waited.
“She said it was purple.” Her eyebrows pulled together.
“And there were too many stars.” Noa stopped moving. I continued before I could talk myself out of it. “She said something was burning.”
“The green fire?”
“She didn’t say what color.”
“But you think-“
“I don’t know what I think.” My voice came out sharper than I meant to. Noa went quiet. I rubbed my hands over my face. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“It was just weird.”
“Yeah.”
“I probably made it weirder because I was already thinking about the dream.”
“Maybe.” I looked at her. Noa was staring at my screen. “What?”
“I heard part of it.” My stomach seized. “What do you mean?”
“We were quiet over here when the call came in. I heard you repeating things back.”
“Okay.”
“You asked her about the stars.” I nodded.
“And I heard you say purple.” My stomach dropped. “So you heard it.”
“I heard you say it.” The distinction landed harder than I expected.
“But you heard her talking.”
“Some of it.”
“What did she say?” Noa thought for a moment. “She was scared. I heard her say she didn’t know where she was. I heard something about someone being there.”
“The woman.”
Noa nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
Relief and fear hit me at the same time. She heard it. At least some of it. I wasn’t imagining everything. Noa glanced toward the supervisor’s desk. “Pull the recording.”
I looked at her. “We shouldn’t.”
“You know you’re going to.” She was right. It took another fifteen minutes to work up the nerve. When I finally replayed the call, Noa stood behind my chair with her arms crossed. 911, what’s the address of your emergency? Then the woman. Quiet, scared. Real. I breathed a little easier. We listened. I don’t know where I am. Are you hurt? I don’t think so.
Everything was there, until- tell me what you can see. It’s dark. Are you inside or outside? Outside.
My pulse began to climb. Then the woman said, Oh my God. On the recording, I asked, what?
There was a pause. Then, I don’t know where I am. I frowned. “No.” Noa leaned closer. My voice came through again. What do you mean by wrong? But the caller hadn’t said anything was wrong. Noa’s eyes moved to me. I didn’t look at her. Can you tell me what color the sky is? Silence.
Then the woman crying. Nothing else. No purple. No too many stars. But my responses were still there. Questions to statements the recording had never captured. My stomach twisted. “No.” I dragged the playback bar backward. We listened again. Same thing.
My voice, her silence. My questions, missing answers. I looked at her. She didn’t believe it either. There’s someone here. That part was there. My breathing becomes shallow. Who?
I don’t know. Can you describe them? Static. Why not? More silence. Then static. The call ended.
No, she’s too far away. No, she sees me. nothing. I pulled my headset off. Neither of us spoke for several minutes. Finally, Noa said, “Okay.” I stared at the screen. “Okay, what?”
“I don’t know yet.” A laugh escaped me. It sounded wrong. “That makes two of us.” Noa put a hand on my shoulder. “Lara.”
I looked at her. For once, she didn’t have a joke. That scared me almost as much as the call. “Maybe you’re exhausted,” she said carefully. “Maybe the recording dropped pieces. Maybe there’s a completely normal explanation for this that neither of us knows because we’re not audio engineers.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“But.” There it was. “But what?” Noa glanced at the waveform frozen on the screen. “I heard that woman.” I didn’t move. “I know.”
“I couldn’t hear exactly what she said. I thought I heard stars.”
“Noa.”
“I wasn’t listening closely. I was working.”
“But it’s not on the recording.”
“I know.” We stared at each other.
The room around us continued exactly as it had before. Phones rang. Keys clicked. Someone asked for an officer’s unit number. The printer jammed again. Normal.
Completely, painfully normal. Except it wasn’t anymore. Something had followed me here. Into fluorescent lights and computer screens. Into recorded calls and dispatch logs. Into the one place where everything was supposed to have an explanation. I looked back at the waveform. For the first time since this started, I couldn’t tell myself it had only happened because I was asleep. I couldn’t blame the darkness. I couldn’t blame the dream. Because Noa had heard it too.
Maybe not everything, but enough. Somehow that was so much worse. The rest of the shift passed without incident. No purple skies, no mysterious woman, no callers describing impossible places. Just emergencies. Real ones. When I got home that evening, Maven nearly knocked me over at the door. I let her. I ate something, took hr for a walk, showered, and checked the scar. Nothing.
That night, I stared at my phone as 3:16 became 3:17. I waited. Nothing happened. At 3:18, I laughed quietly at myself and went back to sleep. The next night, I slept straight through. And the night after that. No dreams. No voices. No green fire. My scar didn’t burn. Maven stopped staring at empty rooms. At work, every call was exactly what it sounded like. By the fourth day, even Noa had stopped asking if anything weird had happened.
Life returned to normal so quietly I almost didn’t notice it happening. Eventually, I started doing exactly what I had wanted to do from the beginning. I explained it away. Stress. Exhaustion. A strange caller. A faulty recording. Coincidences stacked on top of coincidences until they looked like something they weren’t. By the fifth morning, I believed that explanation. Mostly. For the first time in days, I woke up without immediately checking the clock.
I should’ve enjoyed it. Instead, somewhere beneath the relief was a feeling I couldn’t quite shake like the silence wasn’t an ending.
It was waiting.