The alarm rang at 6:30 AM.
It wasn't loud. Just a sharp, familiar tone—precise, unapologetic. The kind of sound that sliced through dreams like a knife through silk. My hand, still half-asleep, searched clumsily across the nightstand, knocking over a pen, brushing a forgotten receipt, before finally landing on the phone. I tapped it once. Silence returned.
I stared at the ceiling. Faint shadows from the curtain stripes danced across the paint—stretched by the rising sun. There was a slight chill in the room, not enough to shiver, but just enough to make the warmth under the blanket feel like something worth clinging to. But I had to move.
My feet touched the cold floor. Hardwood. Always cold in the morning. I shuffled to the bathroom, eyes still heavy, mind not fully present. The mirror greeted me the way it always did—with brutal honesty. Tired eyes, hollow cheeks, a faint dent in my hair from the pillow. I turned on the tap. Cold water splashed against my face, briefly waking me from my internal fog.
Shower. Brush. Routine.
I toweled off and returned to the bedroom. The air smelled faintly of the cedar wardrobe, mixed with detergent and the old dust of silence. I opened the closet and reached for the navy-blue shirt—collared, pressed from the dry-cleaners. My insurance company name was stitched in minimalist font over the left breast pocket. I'd worn this uniform so many times it no longer felt like clothing—more like armor.
After dressing, I made my way to the kitchen. The overhead light buzzed briefly before illuminating the pale countertops and the single mug resting in the sink from the night before. I reached for the bread. Two slices. Toaster down. Egg cracked into the pan with robotic precision.
While the egg sizzled, I stood silently.
That's when the thought came. The one that came every morning lately. Softly, uninvited, but inevitable.
"Why am I still alone?"
The question didn't carry bitterness anymore. Just quiet confusion. I wasn't bad-looking, I thought. Not entirely dull. I had a stable job, paid bills on time, said please and thank you. I didn't smoke. I kept the plants alive. I read books—not just ones about productivity, but novels too. Was that not enough?
The toast popped. The egg was ready. Coffee brewed.
I sat at the small kitchen table—meant for two, still only used by one. The empty chair across from me had become a mirror, always showing what wasn't there.
I ate in silence.
I rinsed the plate and set it in the drying rack, leaving the fork to soak in the soapy water. It would stay there until tomorrow morning, maybe even the next. I wasn't lazy—just indifferent. Some days, the difference was hard to see.
I grabbed my bag, phone, and keys from the counter near the door. The keys jangled as I locked up behind me. Apartment 3C. The hallway smelled faintly of someone's burnt toast and the chemical citrus of industrial floor cleaner.
Down the steps. Out the front door.
The street greeted me with a low hum—early traffic, distant sirens, a delivery truck beeping as it reversed. I lived in a neighborhood that tried to act like a community but never quite pulled it off. It was too transient, too neutral. No one stayed long enough to plant roots. Including me.
The walk to the garage was only two blocks. My car, an aging silver Corolla with a stubborn rear window that never fully closed, sat in its usual spot like a loyal but tired friend. I patted the steering wheel once before starting the engine. It groaned, then came to life.
At 7:48 AM, I pulled into the underground lot of BrighterWay Insurance. A name that always felt like a lie. The parking garage was dimly lit, echoey, filled with the muffled sounds of engines, footsteps, and a distant radio someone always seemed to leave on.
I parked in Spot #26. Not assigned, but claimed. It had become mine through unspoken ritual. Worn tire marks and a faint oil stain on the concrete said, "Nicholas was here."
The elevator smelled like old gum and artificial lavender. I pressed 4. The doors closed with a mechanical sigh.
My office sat at the end of the corridor—Unit 417, cubicle row three, desk six. My name wasn't on the door. No one's was. We were numbers more than people. Faces behind screens, voices over dull conference calls. Still, I greeted the receptionist with a nod. She returned a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Morning, Nicholas," she said, automatically.
"Morning," I replied.
The cubicle was the same as ever. Gray panels, one dented at the base from someone's careless chair years ago. My monitor blinked to life as I sat. Outlook loaded first. Eight emails. Three marked urgent, none actually were. A report due by noon. A reminder to attend a mandatory team-building seminar next Friday. The irony wasn't lost on me.
I put on my headphones. No music. Just silence—to signal that I was busy. It worked. People left me alone.
I started the first report. Claims processing. A burst pipe. Homeowner policy. I filled the fields, checked the boxes, attached the estimate from the contractor. Approved. Next. A rear-end collision. No injuries. Driver at fault. Basic paperwork. Copy, paste, type.
By 10:22 AM, I needed coffee.
The break room was lifeless—two employees scrolling their phones, a third stirring cream into his mug like it was a science experiment. I stood by the machine, waiting for the slow drip to fill my cup. The pot hissed as if annoyed by the effort.
I took my coffee black.
"Nicholas," a voice said behind me.
I turned. It was Jenna from HR. She had kind eyes and always wore purple—today a soft cardigan over a white blouse. She smiled gently.
"Hey," I said.
"You okay? You look… tired."
I offered a small laugh. "Isn't that just my default?"
She tilted her head. "You doing anything this weekend?"
I hesitated. The answer was no. Always no.
"Probably just resting. Reading," I said.
She nodded, like she already knew. "Well… take care, yeah? Don't work too hard."
"Yeah. You too."
She left. Her perfume lingered. I stood for a few seconds longer, letting the steam from my coffee warm my face.
Back at my desk, the hours began to fold into each other.
By noon, I'd finished three reports. By two, five. I ate lunch at my desk—chicken wrap from the shop across the street, half-warm and over-salted. I watched the news on mute while chewing: another protest downtown, rising fuel prices, weather updates about possible snowstorm tomorrow.
By 3:40 PM, I was staring at my screen more than I was working. The lines of text blurred together, and the hum of the office became a low, throbbing white noise behind my eyes.
I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes for a few seconds—not sleeping, not meditating, just trying to pause. I'd been doing that a lot lately. Little mental timeouts. Like breathing above water before being pulled back down.
I remembered I had meant to call my mother yesterday. Or was it the day before? It was one of those promises I kept making to myself but never following through on. She'd left me a voicemail a few days ago. Something about a new recipe she wanted to try. I hadn't listened to it yet.
My phone buzzed—an email alert.
Subject: "Team Check-In — Pushed to Monday."From: Gary HintonTime: 3:41 PM
Gary was my supervisor. Nice guy. Forty-something. Bald. Always wore vests, even in summer. He liked order, but not confrontation, which made him a decent boss. His check-ins were usually just boxes to tick.
"Pushed to Monday" was fine with me.
I replied with a thumbs-up emoji. He wouldn't mind.
At 5:02 PM, I logged out. Closed the tabs. Shut the screen. Packed my bag. The small rituals of disengaging from work felt like removing layers of someone else's skin.
The hallway outside the office was quiet, and the elevator took forever to come. I stared at my reflection in the metallic doors. My eyes looked heavy again. Maybe Jenna was right—I did look tired. But not the kind of tired sleep could fix.
Down in the parking garage, the same dull glow of fluorescent lights hummed above me. My car sat waiting. I got in, turned the key, and let the engine idle for a moment before backing out of the space. The radio came on automatically. A soft piano track. I didn't know the artist. I didn't change the station.
The drive home was uneventful.
Outside, the sun had started to dip low behind the rooftops, casting long shadows across the road. Red-gold light bled through the windshield. The world looked softer in that light, like it had blurred edges—like it was trying to be gentle for a moment.
At a red light, I watched a couple walk hand in hand across the street. They laughed at something I couldn't hear. The man kissed the woman's cheek. She swatted at him playfully. I looked away.
The light turned green.
Fifteen minutes later, I pulled into the lot behind my apartment and sat for a moment with the engine off. I didn't want to go inside just yet. I wasn't sure why. Maybe because I already knew what would be waiting for me: silence. Dim lights. The empty chair. A night identical to the one before.
Eventually, I opened the door.
Inside, nothing had changed.
I dropped my keys in the bowl near the door. Toed off my shoes. Shrugged out of the work shirt and left it draped over a chair. The place smelled faintly of fabric softener and closed windows. I hadn't opened the blinds in the bedroom in weeks.
I made dinner. Pasta with a jarred sauce. Added some pepper, stirred it absentmindedly. Ate standing up. Washed the dish. Let the water run too long.
Then I sat on the couch. TV on, volume low. Some crime drama. I wasn't watching. Just letting it run. My phone buzzed once. A notification from a news app. Something about the mayor. I didn't check.
By 9:20 PM, I was lying on the couch, one arm over my eyes, the other resting across my stomach. I thought about calling someone. But there was no one I wanted to call. Not really. And no one would notice if I didn't.
Tomorrow would be Friday.
I had no weekend plans.
I had no anything plans.
Just… the same.
And yet, something felt strange. Not in a mystical way. Just an odd weight in the air. A stillness that wasn't normal. I chalked it up to fatigue. Maybe I was getting sick.
But I couldn't shake the feeling.
Like the day had been holding its breath.
Like something was waiting on the other side of the night.
At 9:43 PM, I finally turned off the TV.
I stood in the middle of the living room, hands resting on my hips, and just stared at the dark screen. The reflection of the lamp behind me shimmered faintly on the glass surface. Everything felt too quiet. Too still. Even for me.
I wandered to the window and pulled aside the curtain. The street below was mostly empty now. Just a few parked cars, and one man in a thick coat walking his dog. The dog trotted ahead, tail wagging. The man looked tired.
Above them, the sky was unusually clear. Pale moonlight painted the rooftops in silver. There was a beauty in it. Cold, distant beauty.
Then I remembered something from earlier—a sentence from the muted news segment I'd glanced at over lunch. Something about the weather.
I reached for my phone and opened the app. There it was, bold and simple:
Severe Weather Alert: Winter Storm Warning in effect from Friday 6PM through Saturday afternoon. Snowfall expected: 10–14 inches.
I blinked at it.
A snowstorm.
Tomorrow night.
I scrolled down, reading the forecast in more detail. They were calling it "the first major snow event of the season." Cold front. Arctic blast. Winds up to 35 miles per hour. Visibility near zero. All the usual warnings: limit travel, prepare emergency kits, stay indoors.
I lowered the phone and looked out the window again.
Tonight, it was peaceful.
Tomorrow… a storm.
I turned off the living room light and walked to the kitchen. Made tea, even though I wasn't really in the mood. Chamomile. Something to calm me down. As the kettle heated up, I leaned against the counter and stared at the tile floor. There were tiny cracks along the grout lines. I'd noticed them before, but never really seen them.
That's what nights like this did. They made you see things you usually ignored.
The kettle whistled. I poured the water, let the bag steep, and carried the mug to my bedroom.
I set it down on the nightstand and sat on the bed, still in my work pants and undershirt. I hadn't bothered to change.
My room was dimly lit, quiet. The air was cool again. I liked that.
I picked up a book from the stack on the floor—something I'd started weeks ago but never finished. I read a few pages. The words didn't really stick. My mind wandered. I kept thinking about the storm. Not the snow itself, but the idea of it.
How something can change the world around you overnight.
How stillness can become chaos in a blink.
How plans don't matter when nature decides otherwise.
I took a sip of tea. It burned my tongue.
Tomorrow would be Friday. The end of the week. But now, with the storm looming, it felt like something else. Not an ending. Not a beginning. Just… a crack in the rhythm.
And I couldn't explain why, but I felt like I was standing right at the edge of something. Something I couldn't see yet. But I could feel it—like a vibration in the bones, or the way your ears pop before a change in pressure.
The storm was coming.But it wasn't just the weather.
The tea had gone cold.
I hadn't touched it in the last twenty minutes. It sat on the nightstand like an unfinished sentence, slowly losing steam, growing bitter in silence. I stared at the ceiling again, this time from my bed. The blankets were pulled over my legs, but I still hadn't changed clothes. The sleeves of my shirt were slightly wrinkled, and I could still smell faint hints of deodorant and fabric softener on the collar.
I didn't feel like sleeping.
Sleep had become a negotiation in recent months. Not something I drifted into, but something I had to earn—through exhaustion, through silence, through sheer mental depletion. And even then, it wasn't always kind.
I picked up my phone. It was 11:08 PM.
No new messages.
I opened my voicemail.
My mother's message was still there, marked "unheard." I tapped it.
Her voice came through the speaker—warm, familiar, a little rushed.
"Hi, sweetheart. Just wanted to say I tried that recipe you used to like—lemon chicken with rosemary? I probably messed it up. Anyway… no pressure to call back. Just wanted to check in. Love you."
Click.
It ended too quickly.
I stared at the phone for a long time. I thought about calling her. Saying something simple. Something like, "Hey, sorry I've been quiet. Been a bit tired lately. How's Dad? How's the garden?"
But I didn't move.
I just held the phone in my hand like it was something fragile.
A snowstorm tomorrow night. And here I was, pretending today still didn't matter.
There was a part of me that kept thinking about how normal this all felt. Too normal. And how terrifying that was. Because if this was the last normal day I would ever have—what had I done with it?
Had I laughed?
Had I loved?
Had I even noticed the sun?
Back in the living room, I sat on the couch and opened the window just a crack. Cold air spilled in, sharp and bracing. It woke me up better than coffee. I welcomed it.
I sat there, breathing slowly.
Thinking about nothing. Thinking about everything.
At 11:53 PM, I opened my notebook.
It was a habit I hadn't touched in months. A black softcover journal with a cracked spine and half the pages empty. I flipped through the last entries. They were short. Fragments.
I didn't want to sound poetic. I just wanted to be honest.
There was something haunting about the stillness of 11:58 PM. The way time seemed to hang there, suspended, uncertain if it should end the day or keep it going a little longer. I stood by the window, looking out at the dark street below.
No more cars.
Just the empty, sleeping world—and me, still awake, still searching for something I couldn't name.
And then I said it out loud.
Not to anyone. Just to the dark.
"…I hope tomorrow means something."
By the time I made it back to my bed, the clock on my phone read 12:06 AM.
Technically, tomorrow had already begun.
But it didn't feel like it.
Time at this hour moved like mist—soft, invisible, slightly unreal. I sat at the edge of the bed for a while, feet resting on the cool floor, staring into the half-lit room as if waiting for something to arrive. Nothing did.
I changed into an old T-shirt and slid under the blankets. The sheets were cold, but not unkind. I pulled them to my chest and closed my eyes.
Still, no sleep.
My thoughts were loud now. Not frantic, not anxious—just present. I thought about old classmates whose names I could barely recall. I thought about my father's laugh, and how I hadn't heard it in months.
I thought about everything I hadn't done.
I hadn't traveled.I hadn't fallen in love.I hadn't written that novel I told myself I would.I hadn't said yes to that date last year.I hadn't visited my uncle before the cancer took him.I hadn't apologized to Sarah for the way I disappeared.I hadn't been the version of myself I thought I'd be by 26.
I hadn't.
I hadn't.
I hadn't.
But here I was. Alive. Breathing. Blinking into the darkness. The heater kicked on with a low mechanical sigh. Somewhere outside, a car passed by too fast, its tires hissing on damp asphalt. Then silence returned.
The snow would start tomorrow evening.
The news said it would come slowly at first, then all at once. That's how storms move. Quiet beginnings, and then a sudden collapse of light and noise and cold. They bury everything in silence. They leave behind a world that looks familiar but isn't.
I wondered what would be covered in white by this time tomorrow.
The roads. The trees. The past.
Maybe me.
I pulled the blankets tighter.
And in that moment—just before sleep, just before surrender—I thought I heard something.
A shift.
A click.
A soft sound like the world changing direction.
It might've been in my head.
It might've been nothing.
Or maybe… it was everything.