ROMAN
My heart wouldn’t slow down.
No matter how many steady breaths I forced into my lungs, no matter how many times I told myself to stay calm, the panic clung to me like a second skin. My body felt too alive, too sharp, too aware of everything. The room had become suffocating — the walls too close, the air too thick with questions I couldn’t answer.
I couldn’t lie there anymore.
If something was happening to me, I needed to understand it. And staying in that bed pretending to be weak wasn’t going to give me answers.
I moved carefully.
Slowly peeling the sheets back, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and paused, listening. The house hummed with quiet life...distant footsteps, the faint clink of dishes from somewhere far off, the low murmur of voices bleeding through walls.
