The ring cuts through the quiet like a blade. Not the alarm clock. The hotel phone. The beige plastic one bolted to the nightstand, the kind nobody touches unless something's wrong. I blink awake, disoriented for a second, then glance at the digital clock.
8:00 a.m.
A respectable hour. Not early. Not late. The kind of time people with stable lives wake up without thinking about it.
I didn't request a wake‑up call.
The phone keeps ringing.
I scrub a hand over my face, sit up, and pick it up. "Hello?"
A familiar voice slides through the line, cool and amused.
"Finally awake. I was starting to think you'd died again."
I exhale a laugh before I can stop it. "Morning to you too, Gabrielle."
"Oh, good. You sound alive. Barely. But alive."
I lean back against the headboard. "You call all your projects first thing in the morning?"
"You're not a project," she says. "You're more like a long‑term experiment with questionable results."
"Comforting."
"I try."
There's a faint hum behind her voice. Not static. Not distance. Just the strange nowhere place she talks from. The pocket dimension. The in between.
"You slept," she says. "A full night. No nightmares. No interruptions. I'm impressed."
"Didn't know you were keeping score."
"Oh, I always keep score. You just usually lose."
I shake my head, smiling despite myself. "So what's the reason for the call?"
"To make sure you don't waste the day," she says. "You have things to do. Places to go. A life to build. And you're very prone to lying in bed staring at ceilings."
"That was one time."
"It was three," she corrects. "And one of those ceilings had mold."
I groan. "Alright. Message received."
"Good." Her tone softens, barely, but enough to notice. "You're doing well. Better than I expected. Don't ruin it."
"I'll try not to."
"Try harder," she says. "And eat something. You get stupid when you're hungry."
Before I can respond, the line clicks.
She's gone.
I stare at the phone for a moment, then set it back in its cradle. The room feels a little warmer now. A little less empty. I swing my legs out of bed, stretch, and stand.
8 a.m.
A good time to start a day. A good time to start a life.
I grab my notebook, my jacket, and the folder from the travel agency. The bed is already cooling behind me, the room already fading into memory.
Time to move. Time to go back to the agency. Time to choose where I'm going next.