Time

CHAPTER 14

I started spending more time in crowded places—cafés, lecture halls, busy sidewalks—anywhere noise could drown out the quiet that had started pressing in again.

There were moments when I caught my reflection in windows or mirrors and didn’t recognize the girl staring back. She looked too calm. Too composed. Like a mannequin that had learned to mimic breathing.

Beverly called more often now. Not to talk about what happened—she never brought that up—but to check in. Sometimes she’d send a photo of her breakfast or a random meme she knew I’d laugh at. I appreciated it more than I could say.

But I hadn’t asked her what happened in the passage.

I was scared she’d say, what passage?

Or worse—that she remembered something I didn’t. That she’d seen something behind that wall I was never meant to see.

One night, I was alone in my apartment, lights dimmed, music humming low in the background. I’d just gotten out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, when I noticed my phone vibrating on the counter.

Unknown Number.

I froze. Let it ring once. Twice.

On the third ring, it stopped.

I stared at the screen, heart thumping, waiting for a message, a voicemail, anything.

Nothing came.

I laughed nervously and turned back toward my room—but the air had changed.

It was subtle, like a draft slipping under a sealed window. A pressure in the walls. A static charge on my skin.

I walked to the door and paused.

The hallway was empty.

But I could smell something—something metallic, like old blood or rusted hinges.

I checked the locks. They were all in place. Nothing had moved.

Still, I barely slept that night. I kept hearing things—soft knocks on the wall, a low humming sound beneath the floorboards, like something was trying to rise.

By morning, the apartment was still and cold. Everything looked normal.

Except my mirror.

A message was scrawled across the fogged glass from the night before.

Did you forget already?

I backed away, breath catching in my throat. The words were fading fast, disappearing like breath on glass.

I didn’t tell anyone.

Not Beverly. Not Kene.

Instead, I scrubbed the mirror until it gleamed, until it showed nothing but me—and even that felt like a lie.

⸻

Two days later, I went back to the hospital.

Not for answers. Just to see if the place still felt real.

The nurse who had cared for me was gone. Transferred to another department, they said.

My chart had no mention of “Beverly” or any visitor apart from medical staff. The receptionist said no one had stayed with me.

But I remember Beverly’s voice. Her face beside the bed. Her fingers brushing hair from my face.

Don’t you?

I walked out into the sun, blinking hard, the heat pressing down like a second skin.

⸻

Then, things… shifted.

I don’t know when exactly the memory began to blur. One day, I looked in the mirror and felt nothing at all—not fear, not recognition, not even curiosity.

It was like someone had turned down the volume in my head.

No more knocks. No more messages. No more dreams.

Only silence. Clean and numb.

And so I started living again.

Really living.

I dyed my hair—cut it short and sharp, a jagged black bob with violet tips that caught the light like oil. Bought new clothes—tight, shimmering, backless. I deleted old contacts, downloaded Tinder, joined group chats with people I barely knew, RSVP’d to every party, every after-hours hangout, every “we’re just doing shots at this guy’s place” kind of night.

I stopped asking questions. Questions were heavy. I wanted weightlessness.

I let Kene fuck me again, but only in public restrooms or the backseat of his friend’s car. Never at my place. Never when he called me by name.

I let strangers snort coke off my collarbone. I kissed girls who reminded me of the dream I couldn’t remember. I danced until my legs gave out, until sweat dripped down my back and my vision blurred from exhaustion and pills.

Some nights I woke up beside someone I didn’t remember inviting in. Other nights, I didn’t wake up at all—I blinked and it was already noon, a hangover gnawing at the edge of my skull, mascara smeared on pillowcases I never used to own.

One morning, I found a cigarette burn on my thigh. I didn’t remember how it got there. I didn’t care.

That was the goal, right?

Not caring.

⸻

“Are you okay?” Beverly asked one afternoon, her voice warm but brittle. We were sitting on the patio of a juice bar I hated. I was halfway through a green smoothie that tasted like pond water and regret.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I replied, tugging at my sunglasses. They were too big for my face and gave me headaches, but I liked the way they made me anonymous.

“You’ve been… busy.”

I shrugged. “Life doesn’t wait.”

She watched me quietly, her fingers tracing the rim of her glass.

“Do you remember anything from that night?” she asked finally.

My stomach knotted.

“What night?”

Her lips parted, like she was going to say something. But then she just shook her head. “Never mind.”

I smiled too brightly. “You worry too much.”

She didn’t smile back.

⸻

It was after one of those parties—a rooftop rave with neon paint and fog machines—that everything unraveled.

I was drunk. Not just tipsy. Gone. My heels were in my hand, my feet scraped raw from dancing on concrete. My phone was dead. My head spun in slow, sickening circles.

Some guy named Remi was leading me down a stairwell, whispering something about his car, about how the night didn’t have to end. I laughed. Or maybe cried. I couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

When we got to the ground floor, I realized we weren’t alone.

There was a man standing in the hallway. Tall. Pale. Wearing a long coat despite the heat.

He didn’t look like he belonged there.

He didn’t move like he belonged anywhere.

Remi didn’t see him. Walked right past, muttering something about parking.

But I stopped. My breath caught.

The man turned to me slowly, like he had all the time in the world.

“Jasmine,” he said, smiling.

My body froze.

Not because he knew my name. But because—

Because I knew that voice.

The same one from the dream.

From the passage.

It wasn’t Beverly.

And it wasn’t me.