Questions in the Air, Part 1

VP and BP Standings
Erin - 99 VP - 5100 BP - 2 Achievs
Liesa - 96 VP - 3200 BP - 3 Achievs
Sam - 95 VP - 7700 BP - 2 Achievs
Claire - 87 VP - 8900 BP - 2 Achievs
Emi - 86 VP - 6050 BP - 3 Achievs
Marissa - 77 VP - 5000 BP - 2 Achievs
Dawn - 75 VP - 5800 BP - 3 Achievs
Norah - 74 VP - 4350 BP - 3 Achievs
Emily - 62 VP - 5600 BP - 2 Achievs
Chloe - 45 VP - 7350 BP - 1 Achiev
Riley - 42 VP - 7100 BP - 3 Achievs
Myra - 20 VP - 6800 BP - 1 Achiev
Laura - 18 VP - 6950 BP - 1 Achiev

Andy woke at dawn, as he always did lately, the light in the room a flat, silent haze, its edges blurring around the crumpled sheets and the sleeping contours of memory. There was no sound but the soft click of a teaspoon against ceramic, and the low hush of wind, thick with the promise of a clear day.

Dawn was already up—of course. It was 6:00 a.m. on the dot, the Suite clock a perfect metronome to her Wake Up Call transformation. She stood by the windows, hair pinned up in a loose twist, mug of tea steaming between her hands. The bunny ears, still there after a night of being mussed and tugged, twitched in response to the roll of the ocean, like radar tuned to a frequency only she understood.

He watched her, the sharp line of her profile soft in the blue wash of early morning. There was something different about her today, a stillness in the way she stood, as if the whole world had agreed to pause and let her exist in it, undisturbed. Her shoulders, always a little hunched—always braced against the next crisis—were now relaxed, the tension gone from the curve of her neck. She looked both ancient and new.

Andy stretched, careful not to break the hush, and padded across the rug to join her. The floor was cold under his feet, but the air near Dawn was warm, touched with the faintest trace of cinnamon and cloves. She didn’t turn when he came up beside her, just smiled into her tea, then slid the mug into his hands, letting her fingers linger on his knuckles a moment longer than necessary.

“Morning,” she said. Her voice was clear, steady. Not ****-bright, not worn thin by holding in tears. Just Dawn, as she was meant to be.

“Morning,” Andy answered, sipping. The tea was perfect: strong and sweet, exactly how he liked it.

They stood together, watching the tide inch up the black line of the sand. Below the balcony, a flock of gulls squabbled over something invisible, their calls muted by the glass. Inside, the Suite was empty except for the backwards chairs and the aftermath of the previous night: a crumpled shell crown, a set of mismatched pajamas, the faint ghost of garlic still clinging to the counters.

Dawn rested her head on his shoulder, her hand finding its way to the small of his back. They watched the sun burn through the marine layer, the water shifting from pewter to glass to a wash of lemon and blue. Andy tried to summon words, but there was nothing to say that the silence didn’t already hold.

At last, Dawn spoke, her words a thread pulled from the heart of the morning.

Dawn's fingers traced the window's edge where sunlight spilled across the glass. "She's still here," she whispered, her voice steady with newfound certainty. "Last night, when she held me... I felt it. She never left." Her bunny ears twitched once, catching some imperceptible current in the air. "The weight is different now. Like carrying something precious instead of something heavy."

Andy studied her profile, the tension gone from her shoulders, the softness returned to her eyes. "You're different," he said. "You're—" He searched for the word, settled on, "lighter."

Dawn smiled, wide and unguarded. "Abuela's proud of me." She touched her ear, twisting it around her finger. "I used to think grief meant holding tight to everything that hurt. But she's watching over me, Andy. I can feel it in my bones."

He thought of last night, of the way she’d collapsed into his arms, the rawness of her grief and the **** of its release. He understood, now, that the visitation wasn’t just a supernatural curiosity—it was a benediction, a last hug from a grandmother who had made the world feel safe. Dawn’s sadness had changed shape: from a hollow to a fullness, from a wound to a scar she wore without shame.

They sipped the tea, and time moved in slow, even stretches. The gulls scattered. The clouds thinned. Dawn tucked herself closer, her eyes closed, just breathing him in.

When the tea was gone, Andy rinsed the mug and set it in the sink, careful not to break the rhythm of the morning. Dawn watched him from the table, her legs curled beneath her, bunny ears perked as if ready for a new kind of listening. She didn’t ask what came next. She didn’t need to.

They got dressed, hands reaching out to each other, the only two witnesses to a visitation neither had ever expected. Andy gathered his shoes from beside the bed, lacing them with deliberate care. When he stood, Dawn was already at the door, waiting. They descended the elevator together, holding each other’s hands, and when the door opened to the Main Lobby, she kissed him goodbye—a soft, lingering press of lips, one hand cupping his cheek, the other planted firmly at his chest. It was a kiss that said: I am here, I am whole, I am not afraid.

“Go save Laura,” she whispered, smiling. “Then take a walk by the cliffs. See what the day looks like.”

He nodded, speechless. Dawn watched him leave, arms folded around herself, the sunrise painting her in slow-gold. When he turned back at the end of the hall, she was still there at the window, mug in hand, eyes fixed on the far line of the sea.

For the first time in weeks, Andy felt the future open up in front of him, not as a burden or a riddle, but as something simple and possible. Something good.

He walked out into the day, the memory of her kiss still warm on his lips, and let the sun pull him forward.

Emily made her entrance to the Banquet Hall with her usual light tread, her hair—a luminous, ankle-length wave of gold and pink—fanning out behind her like a living garment. She was, as always, nude, but the morning sunlight through the east windows caught the sweep of her hair just right: it was a perfect curtain, every strand draping to cover what it should, every lock tumbling with impossible precision.

It was a trick of her body, she knew—something about the transformation—but there were days, like this one, when it actually made her feel beautiful. Not hidden. Not broken. Just… herself.

Breakfast was already underway. Mildred, in a severe black sheath and not a hair out of place, had prepared the buffet with military precision: carafes of pineapple and guava juice lined up like soldiers, towers of still-warm pastries beside glossy slices of papaya, everything artful and over-plentiful. Mildred herself lingered near the cutlery, arms folded, her smile a quarter-inch too wide.

The Hall filled, gradually. Chloe was there first, cardigan askew, hair a touch frizzier than usual, her face locked in a gentle battle between exhaustion and effort. Riley arrived with less fanfare than most days—her hair in a bun, no lipstick, eyes sharp and scanning. She took a table in the corner and, without looking up, started buttering a roll. Myra entered next, arm in arm with Norah; Norah wore a dark blue blazer and matching heels, even at breakfast, and her posture said she was ready for whatever the day threw at her. They picked seats by the window, and Norah immediately began pouring over a slim leather-bound notebook, eyes flicking up only to track who came in next.

Liesa and Sam showed up together, talking quietly. Liesa was radiant, her skin glowing and her dress a striking shade of coral. She’d done something new with her makeup, too—a shimmer on the eyelid that made her look almost ethereal in the morning light. Sam followed, grinning, a little slower than Liesa, but her eyes never strayed far from her girlfriend’s.

Emi arrived alone, arms folded neatly across her chest, moving with her careful, ballet-adjacent grace. She took a seat in the middle of the room, and, with the smallest of gestures, began weaving origami cranes from the corner napkins, her six hands moving in perfect, silent harmony.

Emily paused, absorbing the room. She’d been to enough breakfasts here to know the normal ebb and flow: the little jokes, the back-and-forth about the food, the way everyone’s moods rose and fell in patterns as regular as tide charts. But today, something was off. She felt it instantly—a thin, tightness in the air, like static that never quite resolved. She couldn’t name it at first, but as she drifted from table to table—collecting a slice of melon here, a cup of coffee there—it became clear: the group was fractured. Something had splintered, and everyone was doing their best not to notice the break.

She offered a cheery “Morning!” to Chloe, who smiled too brightly in reply, then a gentle “Hey” to Riley, who nodded and went back to her roll. At Norah and Myra’s table, Emily lingered a little longer, pouring herself some juice and offering Norah a small compliment on her outfit, which drew a polite, if absent, “Thank you.” But even that interaction felt thin, like a cartoon of a conversation.

Erin, Claire and Laura weren’t around, but this didn’t bother Emily. Erin and Claire tended to wake up earlier than most, grab their breakfasts and then disappear, one in the Inner Gardens, the other one in the Sky Archive. Laura kept to herself in the morning, walking along the beach.

It was only when Emily caught sight of the jazz club key—set out on the sideboard, almost deliberately in her path—that she realized who was always here, and now missing.

Marissa. Of course.

She felt a ripple of confusion, then a small, guilty spike of relief. She’d never quite known how to act around Marissa—there was an authority to her, a gravity, that made even Emily’s best intentions feel amateurish. It was hard to be “the new girl” in a place where Marissa existed. Her absence, though, was a puzzle. Marissa had never missed a breakfast before, not even after nights when she was up late with the others. Emily toyed with her juice glass, watching the patterns of condensation on the table, and made a mental note to ask about it.

Sam and Liesa joined her at the food line. Sam elbowed her, grinning. “No pancakes today?”

Emily wrinkled her nose. “I’m trying to mix it up. The papaya is really good.”

Sam reached for a pastry, but Liesa plucked it from her hand with a mischievous smile. “You have to save room for the cookies,” she whispered, then winked at Emily. “Sam is addicted.”

Emily smiled back, pleased at the easy camaraderie. Liesa’s warmth was always effortless—she could light up a whole room with a single grin. Sam, too, had a way of making even the most awkward moment feel like a private joke. For a second, Emily let herself believe the weirdness was just in her own head.

But as they sat down together, the weight returned. There was no laughter, no morning banter, just the soft clatter of cutlery and the background hum of the ocean outside. She glanced over at Emi, who was now on her third origami crane, her face serene but her eyes darting between tables as if tracking an invisible conversation.

It was Emi who broke the silence, her voice quiet but clear. “Is Marissa okay?” She looked up, addressing no one in particular, but it was obvious the question was meant for the whole room.

The effect was immediate: forks paused, eyes flicked up, a hush swept the Hall. Liesa’s smile faltered, Sam’s hand froze halfway to her mouth. Myra and Norah exchanged a glance, the latter pursing her lips in a small, thoughtful frown.

Chloe offered, “Maybe she just needed to sleep in? She was up pretty late last night, I think.” But the hope in her tone was ****, and everyone could hear it.

Riley, after a moment, said: “Or maybe she’s just not in the mood for crowds.” Her voice was flat, not unkind, but it left little room for further speculation.

Emily tried to nudge the conversation forward. “I can take her some breakfast later, if she wants. Maybe she’s just working through something.”

Chloe nodded eagerly, seizing on the offer. “That’s a good idea. If anyone can cheer her up, it’s you.”

Sam, suddenly serious, said, “Or maybe she just needs time. Sometimes people want to be alone.”

That was the end of it. No one challenged the point, and no one suggested a group expedition to check on her. It was as if, in Marissa’s absence, she’d exerted an even stronger pull on the conversation—her ghost hovering over the table, her silence louder than any words she might have spoken.

The rest of breakfast was a series of false starts. Emi made a gentle joke about her cranes (“If I finish a thousand, maybe I get a wish?”), but it landed with the thud of a paper airplane. Norah tried to steer the conversation to the day’s plans, but the answers were vague: “Not sure yet,” “Might go for a walk,” “Maybe work on the puzzle in the lounge.” Even Mildred’s entrance to clear plates, refill the coffee carafes, and linger just a moment too long around Chloe, did nothing to jolt the group back to normal.

Emily watched all of it, the unease threading through every exchange. She felt the urge to fix it, to smooth things over, but she knew from experience that sometimes, the only way forward was through. The best thing she could do was listen, pay attention, and keep herself open for when someone finally decided to talk.

As she gathered her hair back—just for a moment, just to get a few strands out of her juice—she caught Sam’s eye across the table. Sam gave her a wry little smile, as if to say, Yeah. It’s not just you. We all feel it.

Emily returned the smile, then let her hair fall back into place, a silken curtain between herself and the rest of the room.

By the time breakfast wound down, the Hall felt emptier than when it started. Norah and Myra left together, whispering in low tones. Chloe lingered, clearing her own plates and those of anyone who’d left before her. Riley stayed at her table, head down, lost in thought. Emi packed up her cranes and, with a gentle wave, disappeared out the side door.

Liesa and Sam walked out together, arms linked. For a moment, they seemed immune to the mood—their laughter a quiet bubble in the heavy air—but as soon as they reached the corridor, the sound faded, and they, too, slipped back into silence.

Emily finished her coffee, then set the cup carefully on the table, the clink barely registering above the hush. She stayed a while, letting the room empty around her, feeling the weight of Marissa’s absence and the aftershocks of whatever had happened to make the morning so strange.

She glanced up at the windows, watching the sun climb higher, the day sharpening into focus. Whatever had split the group, whatever had shaken the world of the hotel, it wasn’t done with them yet. There were more conversations to be had, more gaps to fill, more ghosts to acknowledge.

For now, though, she simply waited, her hair a golden veil, her hands folded in her lap.

Laura’s feet followed the garden path automatically, one body veering toward the pebbled turn by the hibiscus hedge while the other lagged half a pace behind, shoulders hunched, arms wrapped around her own waist. It was a tell, that stutter in her sync—as if the choreography, the very laws of her transformation stumbled. This morning, her inner storm made every step a negotiation. The two of her disagreed about everything, even which direction to look, or whether to breathe in at the same time.

She didn’t remember getting dressed. She didn’t remember unlocking her door, or sidestepping the wet traces of the hotel’s auto-watering system. She just remembered the final words in the jazz club, Marissa’s voice trembling with something Laura hadn’t meant to uncover. The argument had spilled her out like water, leaving her with no shape at all after what Chloe had also told her. Now she was here, the air thick with birdsong and the metallic scent of damp stone, each footfall echoed by a second, ghostly twin.

The sun hadn’t yet burned the dew off the grass. Laura walked with her heads down, hands jammed into the pockets of her shorts, wishing she could fold herself into a smaller, quieter version—one that didn’t attract attention, or take up so much space in other people’s lives. She reached the old bench above the cliffs, a place she’d always loved and which Riley had recreated in her memory before Laura was resurrected. it was a place Laura now loved for its view of the sea, and she sat both of her selves down on the still-cool bench that overlooked the world.

She closed her eyes, both faces turned to the wind, letting it whip the sharp smell of salt and flowers into her lungs. She tried not to remember the things she’d said last night—the way she’d lashed out, as if hurting someone else could even the score for her own years of absence and pain. But the words kept echoing, both in her memory and in the new, hungry ache in her chest.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, she thought. She’d come back to life, and Andy was here, and there were moments—perfect, shining moments—when she believed she could actually be happy. But then the old Laura, the one who’d learned early how to weaponize her own pain, reared up inside her, and she was thirteen again: all claws, all jealousy, all fear that nobody would ever love her enough to stay.

A gentle cough broke the spiral. Both heads turned at once, surprised by the quietness of the approach.

Andy stood a few yards away, hands in the pockets of his faded shorts, gaze fixed not on her but on the ocean. He looked less like the hero of her childhood and more like a neighbor on a morning walk, and somehow that made her feel even smaller.

He didn’t speak right away. Instead, he pulled a small red bag from his pocket, shook it so she could see, and sat beside her on the bench, close enough to share the space but not enough to **** anything. He nudged the bag toward her, the cellophane crackling. Swedish Fish, their childhood comfort food—the one thing they’d ever agreed could fix a bad day.

Ponytail Laura took the bag with both hands, the gesture awkward, and smiled, just a flicker. “You remembered.”

Andy shrugged, half-grin on his face. “They’re the only candy you and I agree on. And I thought… maybe you’d want to talk.”

She let both of her faces relax. The tension melted a little, but only a little. “It’s not a nice story,” she said.

“Doesn’t have to be,” Andy said. “But you don’t have to keep it all in your head, either.”

Laura opened the bag. The sweet, synthetic scent was a shock of nostalgia, and for a second she was nine years old again, sitting on the curb outside the pharmacy, splitting the bag with Andy and making up new rules for how to eat them (heads first, never the tails). She popped one in one mouth, did the same with her other self, chewed in stereo, and then let the silence hold for a while.

“I was awful last night,” she said, after a bit. “To someone who didn’t deserve it. I just… I felt like I was the freak. Like I was never supposed to come back.”

Andy waited, and the silence was its own kind of mercy—no diagnosis, no platitude, just a little pocket of time in which Laura could try to assemble her thoughts into something less jagged. The two of her sat side by side, Andy next to Ponytail Laura, sharing the bag of Swedish Fish like a cigarette between cellmates. She found herself not wanting to let go of the candy, as if it might keep her from unraveling in front of him.

"I said things I didn’t mean. Or maybe I did, but I shouldn’t have." She couldn't bring herself to look at him. Instead, she counted the tiny scales on the red fish in her hand. "I was jealous, and I let it… poison me."

Andy nodded, a movement barely perceptible. "That happens," he said quietly. "Especially when you feel like the world pulled you inside out overnight."

Laura winced at the truth of it, and both of her bodies hunched in unison. She still hadn't learned to hide her tells; every emotion played out twice, a pantomime of awkwardness. The morning air was crisp, the kind that should have woken her up and shaken her free, but instead it just made her aware of how thin her own skin felt, how any small thing could tear her open.

"You want to tell me what happened?" Andy asked, not pressing, just opening the door.

Laura shook her heads, both at once. "Not yet," she said. "I don’t want to make it worse."

"Okay," Andy replied, and she could have wept at how easily he let it go.

They watched the sun climb, the silence between them as gentle as a lullaby. The world felt paused, like a record spinning but no needle set down. Eventually, Laura found words again, the admission leaking out around the edges: "It’s not just last night. I keep thinking, every time I get angry, or sad, or weird about stuff… what if I’m just broken? What if I’m stuck in the same story, forever?"

Andy chewed thoughtfully, eyes fixed on the sea. "I think everyone feels that way sometimes," he said. "We just… don’t have the excuse of dying and coming back."

Laura let out a weak laugh, surprised by it. She popped another fish in each of her mouths, letting the sugar burn her tongues before she swallowed.

"You’re not broken," Andy said, voice firmer now. "You got dropped into a world sixteen years older than you remember. You’re not supposed to have it figured out. Hell, I’m still figuring it out, and I never even left."

She wanted to believe him, but the old doubts—sharp and insistent—clung to her like burrs. "I thought coming back meant I’d be better," she said. "Like, I’d have all the answers. Instead I just… I keep screwing up, and then I hurt people, and I don’t even know how to say I’m sorry."

Andy offered her the bag, letting their fingers brush. "You just did," he said. "If you did it with me, you can do it with whoever you’ve hurt."

They sat together for a while, eating their way through the Swedish Fish, the silence slowly easing into something less sharp. Laura let herself lean, just a little, into the warmth of his shoulder, both bodies syncing up. The world didn’t heal, but the ache faded to a bearable hum.

"Thanks for coming," she said, after a long stretch.

Andy shrugged. "I was worried about you."

"I’m okay," she lied, but less convincingly than she meant to.

Andy smiled, not calling her on it. "You will be," he said. "You always were the toughest person I knew."

Laura didn’t answer. She just let herself believe, for a few breaths, that maybe she could be.

They sat until the sun was fully up, their shadows stretching long and twin across the damp grass. When Andy finally stood, he touched her shoulder, gentle and steady, as if to anchor her here in this life.

"You want to walk back with me?" he asked.

Laura shook her heads again, but this time with a hint of a smile. "I think I need to be out here a bit longer," she said. "But… thanks."

Andy nodded, then walked away, hands in his pockets, leaving her with the candy and the salt wind and a little more room to breathe.

Laura watched him go, both of her gazes fixed on the point where he disappeared down the path. For a while, she just listened to the ocean, the birds, and her own heartbeat, thudding two to a beat in her chests.

She wasn’t okay. But he could still find her, and do the thing he always did, making it lighter, more bearable.

Claire watched Laura from the far end of the garden path, not moving at first, afraid to fracture the silence. She’d seen her two selves from a distance before—always perfectly mirrored, steps and gestures echoing with the harmony of a duet—but today the bodies were clearly at odds, one slouched and still, the other twitchy and restless, like an afterimage trying to break free from its source.

She waited until Andy disappeared up the switchback toward the main building, then padded quietly down the path, the loose gravel crunching under her sneakers. At first, Laura didn’t look up, just hunched deeper into the bench, knees drawn to her chests.

Claire felt the familiar awkwardness coil inside her. She’d made progress, she reminded herself. She knew how to approach now: announce her presence, offer the other person an easy out, don’t get too close too quickly. She opened her notebook, a habit that had become as natural as breathing, and wrote in small, looping script:

Can I sit?

She angled the page toward Laura, making sure both sets of eyes could see.

Laura read it. “Sure,” she said, voices barely above the breeze. Both bodies nodded in perfect sync, confirming the answer.

Claire sat at the far end, hands folded in her lap. For a few long seconds, they just watched the light shift over the ocean, clouds moving in slow, deliberate waves. Claire wanted to say something—needed to—but she was bad at finding the right entry point, and Laura’s bodies offered no clue.

Instead, she risked a glance at the doubled figure. They shared the same sharp jawline and small scar on the right side of it. It was like witnessing two versions of grief.

Claire scribbled a new note: You look tired.

Laura’s lips twitched. “You should see the other guy,” she said in exact unison. The joke hit unevenly.

Claire nodded, trying to match the mood, then wrote: If you want to talk, I’m good at listening. She winced—something lifted from a mental-health pamphlet—but slid the note over.

The bodies went still, the silence thickening. After a while Laura spoke together: “I’m fine.”

Claire hesitated, noting the brittle edge to Laura’s tone. She remembered her training in social cues and emotional intelligence and tried again: Can I ask a question?

Both heads tilted at once—a perfect, unsettling synchronization.

Claire scribbled: Does it bother you to have two of yourself?

Laura didn’t flinch. “No,” came the quiet reply in sync. “It bothers everyone else more than me.”

Claire mulled this, then softened her note: You seem… sad today.

This time Laura picked at a crack in the bench, heads bowed together as if sharing a secret. Claire waited. When Laura finally spoke, the voices were so low Claire had to lean in: “I was cruel to someone last night. I didn’t mean to be, but I was.” The words sounded like a diagnosis without a treatment plan.

Claire nodded and wrote: We all do that sometimes.

Laura paused, both faces considering before they said in unison, “I guess,” though neither sounded convinced.

They sat in the hush. The ocean below caught the sunlight and threw it back in a thousand broken pieces. Claire tried once more: When you left, Andy was broken for years. I never saw him truly happy, not really, until now. I hope you know how much you matter to him.

She watched for relief. Instead, Laura’s jaw went rigid, muscles under skin working overtime in both bodies. Claire realized too late her words had been salt, not balm. She scrambled for a response and wrote: Sorry.

Underlining it once, she slid the notebook closer like an offering. Laura reached out with both hands, touching the page. “It’s okay,” she said together, but neither face sold it.

Claire stood, tucking the notebook under her arm. See you at lunch? she scribbled.

Laura nodded, not looking up.

Claire hesitated at the top of the path, then walked away, the echo of her shoes on gravel louder than before. She told herself showing up was enough. But as she rounded the corner, she looked back and saw Laura—still slightly out of sync—staring at the sea, face unreadable. In her mind Claire made a note: Learn to listen better. But she wasn’t sure how.

She made her way through the garden, notebook pressed to her chest, mind buzzing with unsorted threads. The walk back was longer than she remembered, the path looping through stands of wild jasmine and past the little koi pond where the fish darted between shadows. She’d hoped the morning air and the rhythm of her steps would settle her, but instead she felt more churned up than ever.

It wasn’t the failed conversation with Laura that bothered her most. She could process that, analyze it, figure out where she’d gone wrong and promise to try better next time. What gnawed at her was the look in Laura’s eyes when Claire mentioned Andy’s grief. It was as if she’d handed over a piece of radioactive truth, and Laura—already fragile, already running on fumes—had tucked it straight into her heart.

Claire knew the feeling. She’d spent her whole life absorbing other people’s pain, thinking if she could just catalog it, categorize it, she could one day inoculate herself against her own. But the trouble was, pain was contagious. It always found a way in.

She slowed her pace, watching the way the sun filtered through the palm fronds, striping the ground in patches of gold and shadow. It was a perfect day, and yet she felt heavier than ever, the burden of her own inadequacy like a rock in her pocket.

She remembered what Andy had said, weeks ago. “You don’t have to fix everything,” he’d told her. “Sometimes it’s enough just to be there.”

Claire wasn’t sure she believed him, but she wanted to.

She stopped at the little bridge that crossed the koi pond. She watched the fish swirl and flick beneath the surface, their movements unpredictable but oddly soothing. She opened her notebook, flipped to a blank page, and wrote:

People are harder to understand than books.

She traced the sentence with her fingertip, then closed the notebook with a quiet snap. She stood there for a while, letting the noise of the world fade to a background hum, before finally turning back to the main building.

She wasn’t sure what she’d do next. Maybe visit the library, maybe just sit in the sun and let herself exist for a while.

But she knew, with a sinking certainty, that the conversation with Laura had changed something. Not just for Laura, but for herself as well.

She made a mental note—another one—to check on Laura again later. Maybe she’d get it right next time. Maybe she wouldn’t.

But she would keep trying.

It was the only thing she knew how to do.

The sound of Norah’s laugh was always a little brash, a little sharp-edged, but this morning it seemed to echo off the hotel room’s stone walls with an extra insistence. Myra sat cross-legged on the edge of her bed, fox tail curled around one thigh, and let the laughter ring past her before joining in—a lighter, more breathy sound, her own version of the game. The air in their room was still scented with last night’s incense and the tang of salty ocean, but something in it felt off, as if the molecules had all gotten their wires crossed overnight.

“It is not possible that you counted my moves perfectly every turn,” Norah said, voice pitched between admiration and a gentle ribbing.

Myra grinned, baring her teeth. “It’s just pattern recognition. I told you: it’s easier when you can’t be distracted by the colors.” She reached down, ran her fingers along the crisp edge of the Pandemic board where it was propped on the coffee table. Even now, the layout of the plastic cubes and wooden pawns lingered in her memory, bathed by emotions, a map of last night’s triumph.

Norah flopped backward onto the bed, arms splayed like a starfish. “Bullshit. I still say you’re a hustler. The way you called the Karachi triple-outbreak…” She trailed off, then snapped her fingers, as if reliving the play. “That was not pattern recognition, that was witchcraft.”

Myra shrugged, feigning modesty. “Lucky guess.”

“Lucky my ass.” Norah’s tone was teasing, but something behind it was subdued, as if a draft had gotten into her voice. “Next time, we switch sides. You get Quarantine Specialist. I’ll take Medic.”

Myra was about to fire back a joke about how the role didn’t suit Norah’s “germophobic” personality, but stopped. There it was again, that hitch in the mood—a static cling of discomfort, like a wet sheet sticking to your skin no matter how hard you tried to shake it off.

She pressed her hands together, feeling the ridged texture of her knuckles. “You okay?” she asked, quiet.

There was a pause, the kind Myra had learned to read as significant.

Norah let out a sigh, then sat up, drawing her knees to her chest. “It’s weird here today,” she said. “Did you notice it at breakfast? Like—everyone was off. Even Riley wasn’t sniping at anyone, which is… apocalyptic.”

Myra nodded, not trusting herself to elaborate. She hadn’t wanted to bring it up, but it was true: the air in the Banquet Hall had been a mire of unsaid things, with everyone careful not to disturb the surface.

Norah picked at a thread in the bedspread. “Marissa was missing, did you see? Not that it’s our business, but it’s not like her.”

Myra had noticed, but it was more than that. For her, the feeling wasn’t just absence, but pressure. She’d spent breakfast waiting for the emotional “weather” to clear, but instead it had only thickened, a heavy, bruised sky rolling over the hotel and refusing to move on.

She tried to frame it as lightly as she could. “Sometimes people just need to reset,” she said, hoping it sounded more comforting than it felt.

They let the topic drop, and for a few minutes, Norah talked about the expansion pack she wanted to add to the game the next time, how it was supposed to add “mutations” and “bio-terrorists” and, according to the forums, made the whole thing almost impossible to win. Myra listened, throwing in a quip when it felt right, but each time the conversation ebbed, the silence that followed was stickier, harder to move through.

It was as if the argument that had broken out between Marissa and Laura last night—though neither of them knew the details—had split the hotel’s atmosphere into before and after. Myra’s body felt it as a prickling behind her ears, a constant background hum that vibrated just below the surface of every word. Norah, who had less reason to be sensitive, seemed to feel it too, though she didn’t name it outright.

When Myra finally said, “I don’t like it when people are mad at each other,” it came out smaller than she intended.

Norah gave her a long look, then nodded. “Me neither.” Her voice softened. “But it’s not the end of the world, right? People get mad, they get over it. Even here.”

They shared a brief moment of mutual understanding, then let it go, letting the mood recede like a low tide. Norah stretched, then moved to set up the board for a rematch, but Myra shook her head.

“Let’s take a break,” she said. “We could walk the garden? Or just sit on the porch and let the sun bake the bad mood out of us.”

Norah considered, then grinned. “Sun-baking wins.”

They padded out onto the little shared porch, Myra pulling out her cane more for comfort than actual need, although the heavy pressure on the hotel was dampening her emotional sight a little. The air outside was warm, the kind that loosened muscles and quieted nerves. They sat side by side on the cushioned bench, legs propped on the railing, the hush of the ocean a steady counterpoint to the slow thaw of the day.

For a while, neither spoke. Myra focused on the way the sunlight painted her arms in gradients of heat, the tickle of wind on her cheek. Norah hummed something under her breath, not quite a song, more like a fragment of a feeling.

Myra didn’t mind the silence. In fact, she loved it—the way it was so different from the brittle quiet inside the hotel, this outside space full of possibility instead of absence. She let herself lean against Norah’s shoulder, and Norah didn’t move away.

They stayed like that, letting the weather in their bodies settle, until the strange mood from the hotel became just another kind of background noise, easy to ignore if you let it.

“I still think you cheated,” Norah said, eventually.

Myra snorted, the sound lost in the breeze. “Next time, I’ll play with my eyes open,” she deadpanned.

Norah laughed, the sound brighter now, and the two of them let the day unfold, together but not needing to fill every minute with words.

Sometimes, Myra realized, the best way to fix the world was just to sit and let it unspool itself at its own pace.

She didn’t have to be a therapist, or a psychic, or even the best Pandemic player in the room. Though against Norah, she could be.