The isolation of the temporary building was supposed to be a tactical advantage, but by the eleventh week, it felt increasingly like a vacuum.
Elena sat at the small laminate table in Room 4F, her laptop screen illuminating the dimming kitchen. Spread out around her were medical physiology articles, a half-edited university research essay, and a glass of lukewarm water that she hadn't found the stomach to drink. The eleventh week had brought a rhythmic, relentless fatigue that distorted her sense of time. The days bled together, marked only by the shifting light across the brick facades of the buildings opposite her window and the distant, agonizingly slow transit of the red tramway cars crossing the river.
Her phone buzzed against the tabletop, the vibration sharp and invasive in the qu
