NOMI
We spent three hours that felt like three decades.
By the end of it, my brain was fried, my fingers numb from turning pages, my shoulders aching from hunching over the table like I was trying to crawl inside the books themselves. Cold had worked its way into my bones, the kind that didn't care how many layers you wore. I barely noticed anymore. I was running on stubborn momentum and caffeine-deprived spite.
I didn't notice the quiet until it was already wrong.
The low murmur of Diana and Theodore whispered conversation had been the only thing grounding me to the present. Then, like a candle being snuffed out by a heavy palm, it was gone. The air didn't just still; it thickened, turning into something syrupy and pressurized that made the lungs work twice as hard to pull a breath.
