Time, slippery as ever, drifted past like fog on a winter morning. January's last frost still clung stubbornly to the corners of windows and windshield edges, but February had already arrived—quieter, less biting. The air softened. The light stayed longer. It was subtle, but something in the world was shifting.
So was everything around Melisa.
The last few weeks had passed in eerie calm. Too calm. The kind that made your skin itch without knowing why. There was a distance growing around her—a space measured not by footsteps but by glances, whispers, sudden silences when she entered a room. She noticed, of course. She wasn't blind. Just tired of playing along.
That morning, she was ten minutes late.
The moment she stepped past the office threshold, the bark came like thunder.
"You're thirty minutes late!"
Manager Zhang's voice ripped down the corridor. Melisa froze mid-step. She wasn't even at her desk yet.
