THE MORTAL PATH BETWEEN REALITIES

I didn't remember the accident. Didn't remember the hospital, the machines, any of it. What I remembered was waking up at nineteen to a nurse's careful voice and the word "coma" and then, worse, the silence when I asked about my parents. Three years later, I still didn't know what to do with that silence. "Are you working today?" Andrea's voice pulled me back to the kitchen table, to the morning sun making patterns on the linoleum, to the smell of coffee that was too strong because she always made it too strong. "Yeah, afternoon shift." I rubbed my eyes. "Two to eight." "You need to eat something before you go." "I'm not hungry." "Kaiden." That tone. The one that said "we've been doing this dance for three years and I'm tired but I love you so I'll keep dancing." I looked up and there it was on her face too—concern wrapped up in exasperation wrapped up in something that might've been grief, though she hid hers better than I hid mine. "Fine. I'll grab something at work." "That doesn't count." But she let it go, settling into the chair across from me with her mug. "When are you seeing the guys? Basketball?" "Tomorrow. Marcus wants to meet at noon." Good. You should do that more. You're either working or sleeping, Kaiden. That's not living. "I'm fine, Aunt Andrea." "I know you are. I just worry." You always worry, I said, managing something close to a smile. " Well that's my job. She said" We sat quiet after that. Comfortable. The kind of quiet you only get with someone who's seen you at your worst and stuck around anyway. She drank her coffee. I scrolled through my phone, checked my delivery schedule, tried not to think about how my life had shrunk down to this: work, sleep, basketball sometimes, repeat. It wasn't much. But after everything, predictable felt like winning. "Did you sleep okay last night?" My thumb stopped moving. "Yeah, why?" "You were talking in your sleep again. I heard you around three when I got up for the bathroom." "Was I?" She studied me over her mug. "Sounded like you were talking to someone. Having a whole conversation. Do you remember?" I tried. The dream was already slipping away like it always did—just fragments. Colors that shouldn't exist. Buildings stretching up forever. People without faces, crowds of them, pressing close. "Not really," I said. "Probably just stress." "Maybe you should take a day off." "Can't afford to." "Kaiden—" "I'm serious. Rent doesn't pay itself." "You know I don't mind helping." "And you know I'm not doing that," I said, gentle but firm. "We've been over this." She sighed. We had been over it. About a hundred times. I wasn't going to be a burden. Wasn't going to be one more weight on her shoulders when she'd already carried enough. "Stubborn," she muttered. "Just like your mother." The words hit like they always did—quick and sharp and gone. I pushed the feeling down, stood up. "Can I borrow the car? My bike's got a flat." "Keys are on the hook." "Thanks." I grabbed my phone and headed to my room. Passed the bathroom mirror and caught myself in it without meaning to. Dark circles under my eyes. Hair too long. I looked older than twenty-two. Tired in a way that sleep didn't fix. Vinnie's Pizza Palace wasn't glamorous but it was steady work and steady money, which was more than a lot of people had. I'd been delivering pizzas for two years now, long enough to know every street in New Eden, every shortcut, every house with a dog that barked when you walked up. "Yo, Kaiden!" Marcus called out when I walked in. "You're late, man." "By five minutes." "Still late." "Sue me." He laughed, tossed me a delivery bag. "Got three orders waiting. Better move before Vinnie loses it." Vinnie was already losing it in the back, yelling at someone about cheese portions. I loaded up the orders and got out before he could yell at me too. The deliveries were routine. Fifth Street apartment complex—tip the usual two dollars. Suburbs house with the mom who always asked how school was going even though I'd told her a dozen times I wasn't in school. Downtown office building where nobody ever tipped but the receptionist was nice about it. I was heading back to the shop, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, half-listening to some pop song on the radio, when I saw her. A girl standing on the corner. Eighteen, maybe nineteen. And she was staring right at me. Not just looking. "Staring". Her eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that made my breath catch, made something cold slide down my spine. I stared back. Did I know her? She looked familiar in a way I couldn't place, like someone from a dream or a photo I'd seen once and forgotten. The light turned green. A car honked behind me. I glanced at the traffic, looked back— She was gone. I scanned the sidewalk. Nothing. No one. No way she could've moved that fast. "What the hell," I muttered, and drove on. That night I dreamed again, and this time the dream didn't fade when I woke up. I was walking through a city that looked like New Eden but wrong. Same buildings, same streets, but the sky was purple—not sunset purple, something else, something that didn't have a name. And the people around me moved like shadows, their faces blurred, indistinct, like someone had smudged them out. My heart was pounding even though nothing was chasing me. I walked faster, looking for something real, something solid. Then I saw her. The girl from the corner. Standing in the middle of the street, surrounded by shadow people, but she was clear. Real. Solid. The only real thing in this whole wrong city. And she was staring at me, I stopped. My breath caught. "Who are you?" I called out. She didn't answer. Just stared with those dark, unblinking eyes. I took a step toward her. Then another. The shadow people parted around me like water, like I wasn't even there. "What do you want?" Her lips moved. Forming words I couldn't hear. Ten feet away now. Five. Close enough to see her clothes were old-fashioned, something from decades ago. Close enough to see the sadness carved into her face. I reached out. She reached back. Our fingers were inches apart when I woke up gasping, sheets tangled around my legs, heart slamming against my ribs. The room was dark. Silent. Normal. Except for my phone on the nightstand, glowing with a notification. A news alert. "Local Girl Found Dead. Police Investigating." And beneath the headline was a photo, the same girl from my dream, the same girl from the corner. Dead.