The Distance Between
674 Words
Morning came too bright.
Too clean.
Mara woke to the sound of her own breathing. The motel air was dry, humming with the rattle of an old air conditioner. No sea, no wind. Just the faint smell of detergent and dust.
She sat up slowly. The sheets were stiff against her skin. Her chest ached like she had been holding her breath all night.
The talisman lay beside her on the pillow, warm to the touch. A single pulse of light slid across its surface before fading.
She stared at it for a long time.
Her phone blinked once on the table. Her 8 a.m. alarm.
...
She dressed quickly and caught a bus into the city. The morning heat shimmered off the pavement. Her reflection in the window was strange. Familiar but sharper. Her eyes looked clearer. People noticed her.
The driver smiled when she paid.
A woman beside her complimented her voice after she thanked him.
A man she passed on the street turned as if he'd heard her name.
It unsettled her. The attention felt magnetic and wrong.
She pressed the talisman through her pocket. Its surface was cool again.
...
The audition building was a narrow glass tower. Inside, fluorescent lights buzzed, the air thick with perfume and nerves.
Rows of women waited with scripts in hand. When Mara checked in, the assistant looked up from her computer.
"Oh. Mara Quinn?"
Her name sounded strange in the woman's mouth.
"Yeah," she said.
The assistant nodded. "You're next. They've been waiting."
Waiting.
Mara exhaled and stepped inside.
The room was small. Two people sat behind a camera. A man with thin glasses smiled politely.
"Whenever you're ready."
She started the lines. Her voice came out steady at first, then something shifted. The words felt alive, richer. Every movement, every breath filled the space.
When she finished, no one spoke for several seconds.
The man with the glasses leaned forward. "You have something. Hard to define, but... it's there."
She forced a small smile. "Good or bad?"
"Depends who's watching."
He scribbled something on his notepad.
Mara left before they could say more.
...
Outside, the heat hit her. The world felt loud again, but people still stared. Not unkindly. Like they knew her from somewhere they couldn't place.
She caught her reflection in a shop window. Her skin looked flushed, her eyes brighter. The sight made her chest tighten.
She walked until her feet hurt. Found a café. Ordered coffee she barely drank.
When she looked down into the cup, the dark liquid rippled. Just once.
She blinked. It stilled.
She told herself it was nothing.
...
By evening, the sun hung low and heavy. She sat on the edge of her motel bed, replaying the day in her head. The way people looked at her. The voice in the audition room.
A sudden pressure built behind her eyes. The room dimmed around her.
Then she saw it.
Water. Endless and black. The Villa rising through it like a ghost.
Elias standing inside, half-submerged, eyes closed.
Glass cracking above his head.
A shimmer of light pressing against him. Her light, wrapping around his shoulders like a second skin.
He opened his eyes and looked straight at her.
The image snapped away.
Mara gasped. The air felt thin. Her palms were wet.
She wiped them on her jeans and reached for her phone. One missed call. Unknown number.
She pressed play.
Mrs North's voice filled the room.
"Mara... you shouldn't have gone."
A burst of static. Then:
"The sea's restless again. And Master...he...he..."
A low sound in the background, almost like wind moving through water.
And the line went dead.
Her heart lurched. She didn't know why.
Mara sat frozen. Outside, the motel sign flickered, washing the room in red light.
She looked at the talisman. It pulsed once, a slow heartbeat that matched her own.
She whispered, "What are you trying to tell me?"
Rain began to tap against the window.
The sound grew heavier, louder, until it drowned everything else.
- Writer
