Three months later, I was sitting in Dr. Ahmad's office for what had become our routine monthly check-in.
"How have the symptoms been?" he asked.
"Manageable," I said. "I had a rough patch two weeks ago when I wasn't sleeping well. The whispers got louder, and I saw some faint colors. But I used the grounding techniques, adjusted my sleep schedule, and they decreased again within a few days."
He nodded, making notes. "And your medication compliance?"
"Every day. Same time. I haven't missed a dose."
"How are things with your family?"
"Good, actually. Better than I expected. My sister let me hold my nephew last week—for the first time since everything happened. My mom was there, and my sister was right beside me the whole time, but still. It felt like... I don't know. Forgiveness, maybe. Or at least the beginning of it."
Dr. Ahmad smiled. "That's significant progress."
We reviewed my symptoms, my medication, my support system. Everything was stable. Not perfect—there were still whispers some days, still moments when I saw faint glows around people and had to remind myself they weren't real. But I was managing.
"I want to talk about something," I said as we were wrapping up. "I've been thinking about going back to the support group. Not just as a participant, but maybe eventually helping to facilitate. Sharing my story with people who are where I was."
Dr. Ahmad considered this. "How do you feel about that?"
"Scared," I admitted. "But also like it might help. Not just them—me too. Keeping perspective on where I've come from."
"I think that could be very healthy," he said. "As long as you're checking in with yourself regularly. Making sure you're not taking on too much or letting other people's struggles affect your own stability."
I promised I would.
As I was leaving his office, I paused at the door. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Do you think I'll ever be able to trust my own perceptions again? Completely, I mean. Without second-guessing whether what I'm seeing or feeling is real or just a symptom?"
He was quiet for a moment. "I think you'll always have to practice some degree of reality testing. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Most people could benefit from questioning their assumptions and checking their perceptions against objective reality. You've just had to learn it in a more intense way."
"So no," I said.
"So you'll learn a different kind of trust," he said. "Trust in the process of verification. Trust in your support system. Trust that even when you're uncertain, you have tools to figure out what's real."
I nodded and thanked him.
Outside, the afternoon sun was bright but not overwhelming. I was learning to exist in a world where I couldn't always trust what I saw, where certainty was a luxury I might never have again.
But I was learning.
Part Eight: The Question
That evening, I was walking through the grocery store when I saw a woman reaching for cereal on the top shelf. For just a moment, I saw what might be a faint shimmer of orange light around her hand—or maybe it was just the way the fluorescent lights hit her bracelet.
And then I had a thought: She should move. Now.
I opened my mouth, then closed it. This was a symptom. This was exactly what I'd been training myself to ignore.
But the thought came again, more insistent: Move. Now.
"Excuse me," I heard myself say. "Maybe try a different—"
A can of soup fell from the shelf above, tumbling end over end, landing exactly where her hand had been a second before. She'd moved at my words, startled, stepping back.
We both stared at the dented can on the floor.
"Thank you," she said, looking shaken. "I don't know how you knew."
"Lucky guess," I said automatically.
She picked up her cereal and walked away. I stood there for a long moment, my heart pounding, staring at that dented can.
It was a coincidence. It had to be. Old shelves, improperly stacked inventory, gravity. Nothing more.
But my hands were shaking as I pulled out my phone and opened the notes app where I'd been tracking my symptoms. I started to type: Saw orange shimmer, had intrusive thought about danger, unrelated coincidence occurred.
I stared at the words.
Then I deleted them.
Dr. Ahmad said I needed to be honest about my symptoms. But what if I couldn't tell the difference anymore between honesty and feeding a delusion? What if writing it down gave it power?
I put my phone away and finished my shopping, but the thought followed me home:
What if some of it was real?
What if I threw away something precious when I learned to call it sickness?
And underneath that, quieter but more dangerous:
What if I'm supposed to be paying attention?
I took my medication that night at exactly 8:00 PM, like always. I reviewed my crisis plan. I practiced my grounding techniques.
But later, lying in bed, I couldn't stop thinking about the woman in the grocery store. About the homeless man reunited with his daughter. About the laptop, the attempted break-in, all the small predictions I'd dismissed as background noise.
The voice was silent now. The medication had done its job.
But in that silence, my own thoughts echoed louder:
What if you weren't entirely wrong?
I closed my eyes and practiced the breathing technique Jonas taught me. Four counts in, four counts out.
Tomorrow I'd mention it to my therapist. Tomorrow I'd add it to my symptom log and let the professionals help me reality test.
Tomorrow I'd do everything right.
But tonight, just for tonight, I let myself wonder what would happen if I started paying attention again.
Just a little.
Just enough to see if there was a pattern.
My phone buzzed with a text from my sister: a photo of my nephew, smiling, covered in spaghetti sauce.
For just a moment—so brief I almost missed it—I saw the faintest shimmer of gold around his head.
Gold means new life, whispered a memory of the voice.
Or maybe it was just my own thought.
I turned off my phone and closed my eyes.
Four counts in.
Four counts out.
Tomorrow I'd tell my therapist.
Tomorrow.
END