Alice slowly began to emerge from an unusually deep sleep. She felt weak, sore, completely wrecked. Something was off. She sensed it right away, but couldn’t, for the life of her, tell what it was. Something felt wrong, or maybe not wrong, just… different. She lay there for a long moment, wondering if she had the energy or even the will to deal with it. Eventually, she decided she didn’t. Better to sleep a little longer.

  Then came a voice. Someone was calling her. A voice she recognized but couldn’t quite place. It sounded worried, and it had been calling for some time. Why? That’s when the memories began to drift back. The attack. The church. The cleric. The sex. The house. The flu. Right. She’d been sick. That probably explained why she was in bed, feeling so drained. She focused on her body and found, with some relief, that aside from the fatigue, nothing seemed seriously wrong. The Not-a-Doctor… of course. He must’ve passed her the right blueprint, and her body had healed itself while she slept. Even the wound no longer hurt, which meant it had closed properly.And yet, something still didn’t add up.

  Someone brushed the hair from her face, gently stroked her forehead. She stirred, and the voice called her name again. Where the hell did she know that voice from? She tried to open her eyes, but it felt nearly impossible. The light hurt. The noise hurt. Everything hurt, stabbing into her skull like a migraine turned up to eleven. Her eyelids slammed shut before her pupils had a chance to adjust. It was some inner command she couldn’t disobey. She groaned, and even that hurt like hell. Someone was still talking, but their words only made it worse. She didn’t listen. All she wanted now was to sink back into the safety of dreams. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

  “Goddamn it, Alice! Don’t fall asleep again!”

  Someone screamed. And suddenly she remembered that voice. Marcel. He was rarely that worked up. Dejected, cynical, bitter, clinically depressed, sure. But worried? About her? That was new. Something must’ve been seriously wrong to get that kind of reaction out of him. That thought rattled her enough to force another attempt at waking up. This time was even harder, but she managed to crack her eyes open and glance toward the ghost. He sat on the edge of her bed, eyes wide with something that looked an awful lot like full-blown panic.

  “Don’t close your eyes! Please,” he begged, and those words finally cut through the fog in her brain.

  If he was that shaken, something was definitely wrong. What the hell happened? Did she grow a second head? Was her face different? Aged overnight? If she had the strength, she’d run straight to the bathroom and inspect every inch of herself.

  “What happened?” she asked, trying not to imagine the worst.

  “You were asleep,” the ghost replied, dead serious.

  “Yeah, I do that sometimes,” she snapped, covering her eyes with her hand.

  “You’ve been asleep for days. Not a single flicker of consciousness. I called and called, but you didn’t respond. I even siphoned a little energy from the neighbors to shake you awake, but it didn’t do a damn thing. Alice, I was losing my goddamn mind. I was sure you’d fallen into some kind of coma and were about to die. He wouldn’t let you die, would he? That tall guy with the black hair. He’d help you, right?”

  “Marcel…” Alice tried to cut him off, but her voice barely cooperated.

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  “I kept telling myself that. Over and over. But things got worse. You were screaming in this strange, silent kind of screaming. I couldn’t hear it, but the dogs howled like mad. And then even that stopped. No more screaming. I figured you were too weak to go on…”

  “Shut. Up.” She snapped, though it hurt like hell to do so.

  Marcel fell silent at once. Alice sat there a moment, trying to gather her thoughts, to function, but it just wasn’t happening. On the other hand, she was definitely hungry and desperately needed the bathroom. If even she could smell her own sweat, things had reached critical mass.

  “Marcel,” she said, though she had no idea what to follow that with. She thought for a moment, then something clicked. “Marcel, say that part again. The bit about the sleep and the screaming. But slowly. Step by step.”

  The ghost stared at her like he couldn’t comprehend a single word. There was a hollow look in his eyes, but beneath that, something churned slowly, mechanically. His mind grinding through the logic, trying to piece it all together. Eventually, he understood what she wanted. And he began:

  “You came home soaking wet. Got sick. Stayed in bed.”

  “Right,” Alice nodded. “And what day is it today?”

  “Monday.”

  “So that’s… two days,” she said, trying to work it out. “I went on that stupid walk in the park Saturday.”

  “A week and two days,” Marcel corrected, eyeing her with a strange expression she couldn’t quite read. Before she could ask anything else, he continued:

  “You were in bed for a whole day before you woke up with a high fever. We had another fight, and I disappeared. Remember that?”

  Alice was still reeling from the sheer amount of time she’d lost. She couldn’t wrap her head around it, couldn’t even begin to process it. It was like Marcel was speaking another language, or like he was describing something far beyond her understanding. But than…

  “I remember. That’s when Not-a-Doctor showed up.”

  “Well, after that, you fell asleep again. At some point, the air started to feel… off, like something in it was vibrating differently. I thought I was imagining things. But I wasn’t, because suddenly all the dogs in the neighborhood started barking. Not only barking, howling, but also shoving their snouts under their paws like they’d all gone completely nuts. That’s when I got worried. I remembered something I’d read in one of your books, about how dogs hear more than we do. Sound travels through the air, right? Maybe I picked up on it too, the kind of frequency regular people can’t hear. I wanted to tell you, but you were still asleep. Mouth hanging open, your face twisted like you were screaming, but no sound was coming out. Every muscle in your body was tense, hard as a rock. I panicked, but there was nothing I could do. I just waited. And waited. I had this horrible feeling you were suffering. Really suffering.

  After three days, you finally started to relax a little. Your mouth closed, and the tension left your face. But I could still sense something happening inside you, like everything still hurt, just not quite as bad. At first I was relieved. But then I got even more worried. You didn’t wake up for four more days. I stayed with you, kept calling your name. It occurred to me you might be in a coma. You know how in the movies the doctors say to keep talking to the person? You’re not exactly someone I’m close to, but hey, it couldn’t hurt.”

  Alice stared at Marcel like he’d lost his mind. And yet, something in her told her he wasn’t lying. She shut her eyes for a moment, trying to pull herself together. Then she forced, literally forced herself to sit up. Her body was weak, trembling, but she managed. She looked down at her legs. They looked normal. Her arms, too. Hands…

  “Marcel… do I look any different than usual?” she asked, her heart pounding from the effort.

  The ghost studied her for a moment, then replied with a hesitant note in his voice,“I don’t know. You look exactly the same. But somehow… you feel different.”

  She did feel different, though she couldn’t explain why. Couldn’t put her finger on it, couldn’t tell what exactly had changed. It’s fine, she told herself. I’ll deal with it later.