Holding

Six Months Earlier…

Something was off.

The stillness was heavy. Tilted. Like a moment captured before a storm but not above ground, possibly underground. I could tell I was awake but feeling trapped inside something pretending to be calm yet scared.

My eyes were still closed, they had to be. I knew that. If I had moved, I couldn't tell. Pressure was building—behind my forehead, down my spine, in my hands, like being put under, but no warmth just cold. My memory stayed, but it fought to forget.

I held my breath recalling.

The bird scream first. That tearing sound from the marsh—the one that didn’t belong to anything I’ve ever seen fly.
Then the Reflection Loop sign. Burned, split, one side half buried in ash. The R, blistered and melting.
Smoke. So much smoke.

And the camera. It doesn’t make sense.
Sometimes in my hand. Sometimes taking the shot on its own. Always clicking when I wasn’t ready, but recording nothing.

The figure. Human like, but it wasn't. I’m never sure. It was watching, but never from the same place.
In water. In smoke. On the ridge above the desert when the flash flood came.

None of this belonged to me.

But I remembered it.
Or it remembered me.

The details started to slip. I felt them scraping to hold on—sliding down like water through cracks.

So I stayed still.
Eyes closed.

The world outside didn’t matter. Only what was behind my lids.
Only what I could keep if I didn’t open them.

My chest rose, slow. Fell.
Time folded over. The weight returned—this time around my limbs.
A kind of sleep, but deeper. Like being pulled backward through a tunnel.

Then: a voice. Close.

Don’t open them yet.

A pause.
Then the sound.

Click.
The shutter again.
But this time, I hadn’t moved.