NOAH
Eventually, I stopped telling myself the stories, because the words weren't landing anymore. They weren't reaching whatever deep, terrified part of me needed to hear them.
They were just bouncing off the walls of the corridor, leaving me entirely alone in the plastic chair, shivering through to the bone while the clock on the wall ticked forward.
I didn't know how many minutes had passed.
Time had done something elastic and broken, stretching out until a single minute felt like a whole afternoon, but leaving the day without any structure or weight. I had no reliable way of knowing if the sun was still up outside the brick walls.
Then the latch on the door clicked.
I was on my feet before the wood had even cleared the frame, my laptop sliding off my lap and hitting the floor with a loud plastic thud that I didn't care about.
Dr. Vasquez stepped out into the hall. He was pulling the green paper mask down from his chin, his shoulders dropping slightly as he looked at me.
