I didn’t move to this city for a fresh start.
I moved here because I needed to be where no one would ask questions.
The job offer was a gift, clinical work at a quiet hospital on the edge of town. Not prestigious, not fast-paced, but steady. Predictable. The kind of work where no one looks too closely at who you used to be, as long as you show up on time.
My flat was small. Room 7B. A studio with thin walls and water stains that looked like they were trying to become maps. It was the kind of place that makes you think, If I disappear here, it’ll be weeks before anyone notices.
And that comforted me.
At first, I thought I was just adjusting. The city had a different rhythm. The air felt heavy in the mornings, like something hadn’t settled. I chalked it up to exhaustion. Emotional jet lag, maybe.
But then I started forgetting things.
Small things.
The name of the road that led to my apartment, even though I walked it daily.
Whether I’d eaten.
The code to the hospital staff room, a code I used four times a day.
I kept a notebook in my pocket to write things down. Basic things:
— Buy bread
— Don’t skip lunch again
— 7B
I joked about it with coworkers. “New city brain,” I said.
No one laughed too hard. They didn’t know me well enough to tell what was normal.
One night, I stayed late to finish reports. I sat in the break room, lights buzzing overhead, and stared at a patient's name I’d seen that morning, except now, it meant nothing to me. No face. No diagnosis. Nothing.
I walked home shaking. Not from fear, exactly, from disorientation.
Like I’d stepped out of sync with myself.
At 3:17 AM, I woke up sitting on the floor.
I don’t remember how I got there.
My phone was on the couch, battery dead. My notebook was open in front of me. A new page.
Just one sentence in my handwriting:
“You’re not imagining it.”
I stared at it for a long time.
Had I written that? Was it a dream?
I tore the page out and threw it away.
The next day, I had a patient in her early 30s.
Diagnosed with severe dissociation. She said, “I feel like I’m living half a second behind everyone else.”
I felt that in my bones.
I nodded too hard.
After work, I walked home slowly, dragging my feet like I could stay present by staying grounded. But as I unlocked the door to 7B, I saw something written on the back of my hand.
A number.
41520
I hadn’t written it.
I scrubbed it off.
Didn’t tell anyone.
That week, I woke up three more times on the floor.
Always the same time.
Always in a different corner of the apartment.
Once with the tap running.
Once with the stove on.
Once with all the lights off and my shoes on the wrong feet.
I wasn’t scared. That’s what scared me most.
It didn’t feel like I was being haunted.
It felt like I was glitching.
The notebook filled up faster.
Reminders turned into mantras.
— You are awake
— You are safe
— You chose this
— This is real
On Friday, I lost track of an entire therapy session.
The patient walked out crying. I didn’t know what I’d said.
I checked the recording later, but it had cut out after seven minutes.
Static. Then silence.
I didn’t go to work the next day.
I stayed home and recorded myself.
Put my phone in the corner of the room. Hit record. Sat on the bed and waited.
3:17 AM came and went.
Nothing.
I fell asleep.
When I woke up, my phone was under the sink.
I don’t remember putting it there.
When I found the video later, it was corrupted. All black.
Except the audio.
You know what I heard?
My voice.
Just whispering:
“It’s catching up.”
That was it.
Not scary.
Just tired.
It clicked then.
This wasn’t the past following me.
It was the past being ignored too long.
Stuff I hadn’t faced. Stuff I’d shoved into little mental cupboards and slammed shut, hoping they’d never leak.
All the things I didn’t report when I should have.
All the patients I’d seen back then when I was too exhausted to care.
The night I should’ve stayed. The words I didn’t say.
None of it was dramatic. Just— accumulations.
Micro-ruptures. Tiny, unspoken betrayals of myself.
And now, they were surfacing like bubbles in thick tar.
You think leaving fixes it.
That if you get far enough, you become someone else.
But the body keeps score.
So I started talking. To no one.
To myself.
Out loud.
Telling the truth. Naming things. Not in beautiful language. Just plain. Blunt.
“I didn’t report it because I was scared.”
“I wasn’t okay, and I pretended I was.”
“I left because I was ashamed.”
Every night for a week.
It wasn’t therapy. But it was something.
And weirdly, the fog started to lift.
Not dramatically.
Just slowly.
I remembered a coworker’s name.
I found the missing hospital badge in my freezer.
I stopped waking up on the floor.
Now, I still live in 7B.
The walls still hum.
But I sleep through the night.
Mostly.
Sometimes I hear myself talking in my sleep.
But I don’t silence it anymore.
Because sometimes, the only way to come back to yourself,
is to finally listen.
React
