It is fully night.
Laura does not remember watching it arrive.
One moment the sky held color.
Now it does not.
Streetlights hum faintly overhead.
The park has emptied without announcement.
No gradual noticing.
Just absence.
Axel is still there.
That is the only constant she registers clearly.
His presence feels less like proximity now—
more like gravity.
Not pulling.
Just preventing drift.
Laura's thoughts feel far away.
Like hearing conversation through a wall.
She tries to calculate the time.
Counts backward.
Rehearsal ended mid-afternoon.
Walk.
Bench.
Silence.
The sequence exists.
The duration does not.
Her mind resists attaching numbers to it.
That resistance unsettles her more than the quiet ever did.
She presses her fingers lightly into the bench beside her.
Texture anchors her briefly.
Wood.
Cool.
Solid.
Good.
Real.
She exhales slowly.
The air feels thinner at night.
Sharper.
Her body feels heavier than it should.
Not exhausted.
Weighted.
As if gravity increased again.
She wonders, distantly,
Is this what it feels like to stop holding everything?
There is no tension in her shoulders now.
No active posture correction.
No scanning for threat.
No adjusting tempo.
No performing composure.
Just stillness.
It does not feel restful.
It feels… exposed.
A faint breeze moves across the park.
Axel shifts slightly closer again.
Not touching.
But near enough that she can feel warmth radiating from him.
Her brain notes the detail.
Stores it.
Does not analyze it.
Her eyelids lower for a moment.
Not sleep.
Just rest.
When she opens them again, the world feels slightly further away.
Edges softened.
Streetlight halos blurred.
She does not check her phone.
That fact repeats in her mind like a glitch.
She always checks time.
Always tracks progression.
Now the absence of tracking feels inevitable.
A car passes on the distant road.
Headlights sweep briefly across the grass.
For a second, everything is illuminated harshly.
Then darkness returns.
Laura feels something inside her mirror that motion.
Brief clarity.
Then fog.
Axel exhales quietly.
The sound is steady.
Measured.
Unhurried.
She focuses on that.
His breathing.
The rise and fall.
The predictability.
It anchors her more effectively than her own.
That realization lands faintly.
She does not interrogate it.
The heaviness in her chest shifts again.
Less pressure.
More weight.
Like something settling deeper.
She does not feel panic.
She does not feel sadness.
She feels… distant.
From the interview.
From the trio.
From the idea of tomorrow.
Tomorrow feels theoretical.
Right now is contained to this bench.
This air.
This presence beside her.
Her head tilts slightly before she registers the movement.
A subtle lean.
Toward warmth.
Toward gravity.
Toward something steady.
She corrects it instinctively.
Straightens.
Posture reassembled.
But the effort feels disproportionate.
It costs more than it should.
The park is silent now.
Fully.
No footsteps.
No laughter.
No dogs.
Just the hum of lights and the occasional whisper of wind.
Laura realizes something quietly.
She has not set tempo in hours.
And the world has not fallen apart.
The thought should comfort her.
Instead—
It leaves her hollow.
She stares ahead into the dark, eyes unfocused.
Axel does not speak.
He does not move away.
He remains.
And somewhere deep beneath the heaviness—
Laura begins to understand:
She has never let herself stop before.
Not like this.