I wake up gagging.
It's not some cinematic gasp—it's a full-body, dry-heave-until-it-burns gag. My throat feels like it's trying to evict my own lungs. My stomach flips, and for a second, I'm just a mess of tangled sheets and vertigo. The room won't stop spinning, and my ears are screaming with a high-pitched ring that makes my teeth ache.
I taste copper and bile. I shouldn't. I'm not bleeding, but I'm definitely not okay. The problem is simple: I already died.
I shove myself upright, palms flat on the mattress, breathing like I just ran a marathon through a furnace. My chest is tight—duct-tape tight—and each inhale scrapes against my ribs. My hands are vibrating so hard they look like a glitch in a video game. Grounding. Do the grounding thing, I tell my brain, but it's a frantic, ugly mess in there. I'm Mara; I'm a professional who talks people out of their own endings for fifty bucks an hour, but right now, I can't even find my own pulse.
I fumble for my phone on the nightstand, and the screen is a blinding white slap to the face. Tuesday. No, that's not right—I died on a Friday. Fridays are the late shift from hell, the day people realize the weekend won't save them. I remember the clock hitting 11:47 p.m. while my last caller sobbed until her molars clacked, right before the building folded like wet cardboard.
I swipe the screen with a thumb that leaves a smudge of cold sweat. Date: 7 Days Remaining. My stomach lurches, and I heave into my sleeve, the acid stinging my throat. Great. I've finally snapped. My brain is playing a 'New Game Plus' of my own trauma. I swing my legs off the bed and the floor is ice, too real to be a dream. My knees feel like wet cardboard, but I force myself to stand, gripping the dresser until the laminate bites into my skin.
The vibration in my hand nearly makes me jump.
INCOMING CALL — RESTRICTED LINE
My jaw locks. Restricted lines are never a "hey, how are you?" call; they're the face-less panic of someone who wants permission to quit. Don't answer, I think. It's a loud, selfish, human thought because I recognize the timing. This is exactly how the nightmare started last time, and my lungs feel like they're being crushed by a vice.
I hit answer anyway. Muscle memory is a bitch.
"Crisis line," I bark, my voice thin and clipped. "Are you safe right now?"
Static fills my ear—thick, layered, and wrong—like a dozen radio channels dying at once. Then, a breath. It's not a sob; it's just heavy, controlled air. "I think," a voice says, low and rough, "there's something wrong with the building."
My knuckles go white. I know that voice, even though I didn't hear it on the line last time—I heard it through a wall of fire. "What kind of wrong?" I ask, my heart slamming against my ribs like a trapped bird.
"I'm an inspector," he says, and I hear his footsteps echoing on concrete. "Field work. Routine check. Load-bearing columns have hairline fractures. They shouldn't be here yet."
Yet. The word is a bruise. I remember the infrastructure report from my first life; it didn't update for another hour. Everything is moving faster, and my skin is prickling with a cold sweat. "Can you tell me your name?" I press.
A pause. "Caleb."
The room tilts, and my vision smears as I clutch the bedspread to keep from sliding into the abyss. I remember that name because I whispered it while his hand went cold in mine. I remember it because he was the only thing I held onto while the world ended.
"Caleb," I say before I can catch it.
The breathing on the other end hitches. "How do you know my name?"
Shit. "You—you said it," I snap, the lie tasting like ash in my mouth. "At the start. Look, Caleb, you need to get out. Now."
"I can't," he says, his tone shifting into that stubborn, assessment-mode I recognize. "There are people on the lower levels. Protocol says I escalate and wait for a second opinion."
Ugly thought: Protocol is just a formal word for a body count. "Don't," I say, too sharp. "Just... don't. You said the fractures are early. That means you have time to move, but you have to go."
"And how would you know that?" he asks. His voice is a blade now—observant and dangerous. He's judging if I'm the one who's crazy. My head throbs, and I realize if I say nothing, he stays out of duty, but if I say the wrong thing, he stays out of spite.
"Trust me," I plead, my fingers digging into the dresser.
"Why?"
Because I watched you die. Because I'm a coward who can't watch it happen twice. "Because I said so," I snap—a terrible, impulsive, human response.
I hear a short exhaled breath on the other end. Not a laugh. Disbelief. "That's not a reason," he says.
"I know," I mutter, my tongue feeling like lead. "I'm bad at this part."
Through the line, a distant creak echoes—a low, metallic moan of a building losing its fight with gravity. "Caleb," I whisper, "if you hear anything—anything at all—you run. Do you hear me?"
He doesn't answer for a long heartbeat. "You sound like you've been here before," he says quietly.
My throat closes up as I stare at the date on my phone. "No," I lie. "I just do this for a living."
"Funny," he says. "You don't sound calm."
I almost choke on a laugh. "Neither do you."
Another creak, louder this time, vibrates through the phone. "Stay with me," I blur out. It's too personal, it's desperate, and it's a neon sign flashing my own need.
The silence on the other end is heavy, loaded with questions he doesn't have time to ask. "...Okay," he says finally.
I clutch the phone to my ear, knowing I just made the most expensive mistake of my life. I chose him, and the timeline is already twisting to punish me for it.
"You sound like you're alive," he says, right before the static swallows us whole.
If he gets close this time, he won't die in my arms—he'll die because I let him live.