"Yo, spaceman. You just leave orbit again?"
The voice came from the desk on his left side, close enough that Eli felt the nudge against his elbow before the words really hit him. His pencil was already doodling without him noticing a couple small random doodles on the edges of his textbook, straight through a diagram of a cell caught mid-division.
Marcus leaned a bit closer. "I swear dude, you were gone. Like, fully gone."
Eli looked down. The pencil lines had moved straight across the printed image, just enough to blur the words beneath. He didn't remember drawing them.
"I'm here," he said, putting the pencil back down.
Marcus didn't really look convinced. He kicked back in his chair, balancing it on two legs like he hasn't fallen out if it three times already this year. "You were staring at that page for like a full minute."
Eli look back down at the textbook again. The page showed a basic cell diagram, clean printed lines and labels. The edges filled with thin graphite scribbles where he'd been drawing without thinking. He tried to erase a few of them with his thumb, though he ended up smearing the lead across the paper.
Mr. Han kept talking at the front of the room to probably no one. The projector hummed beside him, showing a pale blue slideshow onto the screen. Someone in the second row was scrolling under their desk. Two girls near the windows were whispering behind their hands.
The windows themselves were streaked faintly with old dried rain. Outside, the sky over Port Virel was a flat gray, the color that looks like the ocean and clouds competing over control
Marcus tipped his chair back forward again. "You been sleeping at all?"
"Yeah."
"You look cooked, man."
"I'm fine."
Marcus snorted softly but dropped it.
Marcus said, "You good for after school?"
Eli: "Yeah, I won't forget."
Marcus: "Alright. Just making sure."
Eli picked up his pencil again, but then stopped. The tip had snapped off completely without him noticing. He turned it around in his fingers, staring at the broken lead.
Then, his phone vibrated in his pocket.
Once.
He ignored it.
It vibrated again, longer this time.
Marcus noticed it now. "Secret side piece, huh?"
Eli peeked the phone out of his pocket just enough to check the name.
Mom.
She never would call during school unless she needed something specific.
He shot up before thinking about it. "I need to go to the bathroom."
Mr. Han waved without turning around. The two girls chuckled a little to themselves.
The classroom door closed behind him with a dull click.
The hallway was usually almost empty during class hours. A janitor's cart sat near a closet, mop bucket half full. The old fluorescent lights above him flickered faintly. Rows of lockers ran down both sides of the corridor, dented in a few places where someone had kicked them over the years, or various kids being shoved into them.
His phone buzzed again in his hand.
He answered while pacing.
"Hey."
"Are you in class?"
Her voice was steady, which is normal, but quieter than usual, like she had stepped slightly away from whatever she'd been doing.
"Yeah," he said, slowing near the end of the hallway. "What's up?"
"I won't keep you long. I just wanted to ask you something before I forget it again."
He leaned back against a locker, the metal cold through his hoodie. Down the hall, a group of seniors ditching class were heading out to the courtyard.
"What?"
"Did you leave your bedroom window open last night?"
He frowned. "No."
"The one facing the street."
"I don't think so. Why?"
There was a small clink in the background, the sound of a spoon resting against the edge of a frying pan. Cooking oil crackled alongside it, steady and familiar.
"I could've sworn I closed everything before bed," she said. "But it feels colder in here than it should. Like there's a draft or something."
"It's probably just the weather," he said. "The whole house gets like that when the wind shifts."
"Maybe." She didn't sound fully convinced. "You didn't go back downstairs after I did, right?"
"No."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
He adjusted the phone against his ear and looked down at the scuffed tile floor. "Why are you interrogating me?"
"I'm not interrogating you." He could hear a faint smile in her voice. "I just hate like feeling like I missed something." She took a small sip of what would be assumed to be her morning coffee.
He let out a quiet breath. "You probably just forgot."
"I don't forget things like that."
He almost said everyone forgets things, but stopped. She hated being told she'd forgotten something. It made her bristle in a way he didn't fully understand.
"Well," she said, now her tone changing slightly, "if I burn your birthday dinner because I'm distracted, I'm blaming you."
"There it is."
"I'm serious."
"You always burn it."
"I absolutely do not."
"You absolutely do."
She huffed softly. "Ungrateful."
He smiled despite himself and pushed off the locker, pacing slowly now. His footsteps echoed lightly in the empty hallway.
"I'll be home soon, after school," he said. "We can double-check the window then together."
He could hear her pacing around the kitchen more clearly now, something that seems to run in the family. The sound of her nails tapping the coffee mug, the small pat of her slippers tapping across the tile .
Then he heard the front door open.
It wasn't too loud. It was just a subtle click of the latch and bump of the door hitting the stop.
He heard her stop mid-motion.
"Hold on," she said.
He straightened without realizing it.
"What?"
"I thought I locked that."
He could hear her footsteps moving away from the stove.
"Mom?" he said, a slight edge creeping into his voice.
There was a pause.
"Eli I—"
Something moved more intensely across the floor.
A sudden high pitched shatter rang through the speaker.
The phone hit tile.
He pulled it away from his ear instinctively, then brought it back.
"Mom."
The line was still connected. He could still hear the stove, the faint hiss their gas stove flame. And a shifting sound in the distance that didn't sound too recognizable.
"Mom, answer me."
No response.
Then the call cut off.
Eli stared at the screen for almost half a second, like he was waiting for her to instantly call back and say "Sorry just dropped it in the sink again"
He hit redial immediately. It rang once.
Instant voicemail.
He tried again.
Voicemail, again.
The hallway around him felt like it tightened. He pushed away from the locker he was leaning on and started moving without thinking about it.
The classroom door at the end of the hall creaked open just as he reached it. Marcus stepped out, confused.
"Yo, Mr Han has been asking where you're at"
Eli didn't answer.
He brushed past him and pushed through the double doors into the parking lot. Instantly the cold air hit his face, it felt sharper than it normally should. The grey sky hung low over Port Virel, with old harbor cranes barely visible over the top of the school building.
He called again while he hurried fast toward the sidewalk. Still voicemail.
Someone behind him called his name, they called once, then again, but he didn't turn around. He was already breaking into a run before he registered that he had decided to.
The pavement of the town felt more uneven than normal. His breath came quick and left quicker, more from the rapid and sudden movement than any panic, though he felt something heavier was building in his chest.
It was probably nothing. She must've had no service. Or her phone just died. Maybe she—
He called her again.
Voicemail.
He sprinted across a small patch of grass beside the school parking lot to take a shortcut, and a car horn blared as he crossed the street without looking properly. It barely phased him.
The streets of Port Virel were mostly quiet during school hours. A delivery truck idled outside a corner store, with its driver posted up smoking next to it. Wind moved through the hanging wires above the road, making them dance up and down.
He ran harder.
Their apartment building finally came into view at the end of the block, the same worn brick walls it had always been, old vines climbing their way up to the second story. A couple narrow balconies along the front were cluttered with various decorations, some plastic chairs, ashtrays, and a few plants clinging to their last leaves. A woman on the third floor leaned over her railing smoking, watching the afternoon traffic, which is usually no more than a 5 car holdup. Nothing about the building looked different. No gathered crowd. No police. No sign that anything inside had changed.
He slowed down only long enough to dig his keys out of his front pocket, his fingers fumbling a few times before he caught the right one.
Inside the building, the lobby smelled like its usual scent of damp carpet and citrus cleaner. The row of metal mailboxes along the wall in their golden brass color. The elevator seemed to be dropping someone off at one of the upper floors. He didn't wait for it. He ran into the stairwell and started up, jumping the steps two at a time.
By the time he reached the fourth floor, he could feel his chest start to burn and close, though he couldn't tell if it was from running or from something heavier pressing in behind his ribs. The hallway stretched long and held old burgundy carpet, doors spaced evenly along faded beige walls that had been repainted one too many times. A neighbor he hadn't met had left a pair of shoes outside one apartment. A television murmured faintly behind another door.
Their apartment door stood at the end of the hall. Numbered 416.
Closed.
He decided to walk the last few steps instead of running, finally aware of how loud his breathing sounded in the quiet corridor.
He unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The apartment was much warmer than the hallway, his mom always had thin skin so she always kept the heat on, the air was combined with stale coffee and garlicy smells left from whatever concoction she had begun. The stovetop light was still on, and the burner hissed steady under a pan with now discolored cooking oil.
"Mom?" he called, his voice reflecting off the small thin walls of their apartment.
A wooden spoon lay on a palm tree shaped spoon rest beside the stove. A dish towel folded in a hurry hung from the oven handle. Her phone rested on the tile near the refrigerator, face up, screen black and a splintering crack across the screen from the corner exactly where it must have fallen. Her routine white ceramic coffee mug was laying in pieces across the kitchen floor and pools of coffee and milk intertwined through the cracks in the tiles.
He moved further in, scanning automatically for anything out of place. The couch cushions were left straight. The small stack of mail near the entry table still hadn't been touched yet.
He decided to check the bedroom next. The bed was made just as she liked it, the comforter smoothed flat enough it looked like fine china. Their only closet door remained closed, and the bathroom light off as well.
Nothing really had looked broken, other than the dropped coffee mug.
Nothing else looked disturbed.
He walked slowly back to the kitchen and reached over the pan to turn the stove off. The burner clicked and its flame slowly died out.
When all the noises finally stopped, the apartment felt smaller than it had that morning.