I wake up gagging.
Not some cinematic gasp—it's a full-body, dry-heave-until-it-burns gag. Like my throat is trying to evict my lungs. My stomach flips, and for a second, I'm just a mess of tangled sheets and vertigo. The room won't stop spinning. Cheap ceiling. Peeling paint. My ears are screaming with a high-pitched ring that makes my teeth ache.
I taste metal. Copper and bile.
That's wrong. I'm not bleeding.
I'm alive.
That's the first problem. I already died.
I shove myself upright, palms flat on the mattress, breathing like a marathon runner. My chest is tight—duct-tape tight. Each inhale scrapes against my ribs. My hands? Forget it. They're vibrating like downed power lines.
Grounding. Do the grounding thing, I tell myself. My brain is a frantic, ugly mess. You're Mara. You're a professional. You talk people out of their own endings for fifty bucks an hour.
I fumble for my phone. The screen is a blinding white slap to the face.
Tuesday.
No. I died on a Friday.
Fridays are the "late shift from hell." People hold on until the weekend, realize nothing is changing, and then they call me. My last caller was a woman who cried so hard I could hear her molars clacking. 11:47 p.m. I watched the clock while she begged.
I didn't hang up. She did. Then the building fell on me.
I swipe the screen, my thumb leaving a smudge of cold sweat.
Date: 7 Days Earlier.
My stomach lurches again. I gag into my sleeve this time. Acid burns the back of my throat.
"No," I whisper. My voice sounds wrong. Too thin.
Seven days. I only have seven days before the world turns Black.
I swing my legs off the bed. The floor is ice. Real. Too real. My knees are made of wet cardboard, but I force myself to stand, gripping the dresser until the cheap laminate bites into my skin.
Peeling wallpaper. Cracked mug. My work badge. My phone—
The vibration nearly makes me drop it.
INCOMING CALL — RESTRICTED LINE
My heart slams against my ribs. The room narrows until it's just me and that buzzing piece of plastic. Restricted lines are never a "hey, how are you?" They're the face-less panic. People who want permission to quit.
Don't answer.
The thought is loud. Selfish. Human. Because I recognize the timing. This is how it started last time. My chest feels like it's 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. Thick, layered, wrong. It sounds like a dozen radio channels dying at once. Then, a breath. Not a sob. Just... heavy air.
"I think," a voice says—low, rough, too calm to be a victim—"there's something wrong with the building."
My knuckles go white. I know that voice. 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 pulse is a hammer in my neck.
"I'm an inspector," he says. I hear 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 the first life. It didn't update for another hour. Everything is moving faster.
"Can you tell me your name?" I press, even though I'm already shaking.
A pause. "Caleb."
The room tilts. My vision smears. 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. "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."
Escalation 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. Dangerous. He's menilai—judging—if I'm the one who's crazy.
My head throbs. If I say the wrong thing, he stays out of spite. If I say nothing, he stays out of duty. I remember the smell of his burning jacket.
"Trust me," I plead.
Silence. Then: "Why?"
Because I watched you die. Because I remember the way the light left your eyes. 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. Not a laugh. Disbelief. "That's not a reason."
"I know," I mutter, my chest aching. "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. My skin prickles.
"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. I stare at the peeling wallpaper, the date on my phone, the blood I can still taste in my mouth.
"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. More insistent.
"Stay with me," I blur out. It's too personal. It's desperate. It's a neon sign flashing necessity.
The silence on the other end is heavy, loaded with questions he doesn't have time to ask.
"...Okay," he says.
I clutch the phone to my ear, knowing I just made the most expensive mistake of my life—
I chose him, and the countdown just started.
"You sound like you're alive," he says before the static swallows us whole.