POV: Aurora
The hallway on the fifteenth floor smells even more strongly of disinfectant when I leave the infirmary.
I close the door and lean against the frame for a second, as if I need to check that the floor is still solid. The cotton tape sticks to the crook of my elbow; I feel like pulling it off, but I leave it there. It's proof that I didn't make this part up.
"Stress and adaptation to the new environment."
That's what Dr. Herrera said, with a measured smile, after checking the tablet.
"Your signs aren't perfect, but they're not alarming either," she assured me. "We'll schedule you for a checkup in a few months. Eat, sleep better if you can, and see what triggers your symptoms. And if anything gets worse, come back."
'Stress' is too short a word for everything I feel.
I walk toward the elevator.
As I wait, the echo of the other sentence, the one that wasn't meant for me, hits me harder than the smell of chlorine.
"The results go straight to you."
I don't know who that "you" is, but I know it's not me.
Lina is waiting for me in the cubicle with a glass of tea that smells like stale mint.
"So?" she fires. "Are you going to die or just go into debt with medication?"
I slump into the chair.
"Stress," I reply. "Adjustment, chaotic cycles, check-up in three months."
She grimaces.
"Translation: 'I don't have anything obvious enough to justify more expensive tests, so let's go back to blaming modern life,'" she says.
I smile a little.
"She said I'm not making up what I'm feeling," I add. "That something is 'running at a different speed.'"
"That does sound like an acceptable summary of your existence," she replies. "Anything else weird?"
I hesitate.
I didn't tell her what I heard on my way out, the whispered "the results go straight to you."
"The tests also go to Management," I say, choosing only part of it. "I don't know who sees them upstairs, but... someone wanted them."
Lina is silent for a moment.
"Of course," she says finally. "They invest in scholarships, projects, supervision... I guess they want to make sure you don't collapse in the middle of an audit."
It sounds logical. But that doesn't reassure me.
The rest of the afternoon feels like working inside a fishbowl. I review Seraphim's tables, check things off, reply to emails. Andrade walks down the hall and asks us for a short summary for the next day. Dante isn't on the floor, but his shadow still hangs from the ceiling.
Every so often, my fingers touch the cotton tape, reminding me that somewhere in the tower, my blood is in a tube being interpreted by people I don't know.
When the clock strikes closing time, I close everything with more care than necessary.
"Are you sure you're okay to go alone?" Lina asks.
"If the bus kills me, blame the government, not you," I reply.
"If the bus kills you, I'm going to leave Andrade a very nasty report," she says. "And management, if necessary."
The idea makes me laugh.
The street smells of fried food and wet pavement.
The bus is late. I get on with the rest of the passengers, grab hold of a metal bar, and take a deep breath. The smells hit me again, but now there's something different: the slight relief that someone in a white coat admitted that what I'm feeling exists, even if I can't name it.
I look out the window.
The city flashes by in neon lights and bars. I think of Seraphim, of the dates that coincide with my scholarship, of Dante's email: "Nothing you see will be used against you if you stick to the facts." I think of the doctor's voice saying that the results are going "straight" to someone else.
Could it be him?
I have no answer when the bus turns the corner.
I ask to be let off. I get off.
The air in this neighborhood is different from downtown. Heavier, less polished. It smells of used oil, clothes drying indoors, cigarette smoke in the windows. I know it.
That's why I notice immediately when something doesn't fit.
There's a new note in the mix.
Storm. Amber.
I stop in the middle of the sidewalk.
It can't be.
I think it's a memory that my brain brings up by default, like a stuck song. I keep walking, but the closer I get to the building, the stronger it gets.
It's not coming from inside, or from a neighbor wearing expensive perfume. It's coming from outside, from the front, seeping into a street that never smelled like this before.
I look up, nervous, as if I'm afraid to find the entire tower planted in my neighborhood.
I only see the usual: a worn facade, low railings, rusty mailboxes.
My heart pounds against my sternum.
I climb the stairs to the third floor almost automatically. I enter the room, leave my backpack on the chair without turning on the light.
The smell continues.
Clearer.
Not inside the apartment. On the other side.
I approach the window.
The glass is cold under my palm. I pull the curtain back a little and look down, not really knowing what I expect to find.
I find him.
Dante Noir is standing on the sidewalk, next to the entrance gate. Dark suit, coat, hands in his pockets. I shouldn't recognize him from this height and in this light, but I do. The way he holds his head, the controlled immobility of his body, even still.
As if the street were his.
My heart stops for a second and then starts beating faster.
Instinctively, I take half a step back, as if that could undo what I just saw. It doesn't. When I look out again, he's still there.
He's not looking at his phone, he's not smoking, he's not talking to anyone.
He's waiting.
And I, from my cheap window, can only think of one thing with absurd clarity:
The man who runs the tower where I work is standing on the street in my neighborhood, breathing the same air as me...
As if coming here were the most natural thing in the world.