Chapter 1
Chapter one
ILIANA
“Don’t you dare fall asleep at the wheel,” Iliana muttered to herself, shaking her head and forcing her drooping eyelids open.
The droning voice on the radio did nothing to keep her awake. The tragic news of nearby flash floods only dragged her down further.
She was so damned tired of bad news. The past month had been hell. Every time her life seemed on track, something knocked her flat again. Hope was hazardous. This time, the crash shattered her.
She tried to focus on the road ahead. Yet, no matter how hard she fought, memories clawed their way in.
The phone call had come earlier that month from a stranger with a disconnected, unfeeling voice.
There had been an accident on the interstate, and her parents were gone, both declared dead at the scene.
She’d laughed in disbelief, thinking they had the wrong number.
After all, she’d spoken to her mother that same morning, talking about a new hiking spot they wanted to visit. It couldn’t be true.
Not until a solemn police officer appeared at her workplace did she accept the truth. Her parents had been killed instantly in the collision. The caller hadn’t been mistaken. She had.
Without them, the world was smaller; dimmer. A place she no longer knew how to navigate. Their weekly phone calls could brighten her worst days, and their surprise visits helped her forget her worries, if only for a little while.
Numbness had been her only shield as everything blurred.
Paperwork. Funeral arrangements. Kind but empty condolences.
The funeral was short, but the trip to follow their last wishes had seemed like it would never end.
She poured out her parents’ ashes, sobbing as the dry, desert wind scattered the last traces of her only family. And just like that, they were gone.
Her lungs constricted, loneliness choking her as it pressed in. Her thoughts jumbled as she held onto the wheel, desperate to keep from being swept under the crushing certainty that she was alone.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept for more than an hour at a time. The nightmares came too fast, too vivid. Wars. Monsters. Faces she didn’t recognize and horrors she could never quite recall upon waking.
Still, the worst part was the waking terror. Her own body betrayed her while she slept, moving without her knowledge or consent.
She’d nearly drowned in the bathtub, sputtering awake as water spilled over the rim. Another time, she almost suffocated from a gas leak after sleepwalking to the kitchen and leaving the stove on. Once, she awoke in the middle of the road, barefoot and clad only in her nightgown as cars honked.
The doctors dismissed her concerns, saying she was only stressed and grieving, but they weren’t waking to find themselves in places they never chose to go. How was she supposed to trust herself when her own body would leave her vulnerable every single night?
She needed sleep, but it wasn’t the comfort it should’ve been. It was now a risk she took each time she closed her eyes.
Between the grief, the weariness, and the fear of herself, it was all too damned much.
Iliana swallowed past the lump in her throat, needing something else to focus on. Something positive. Instead of thinking about their deaths, she thought of how they’d lived. They wandered from city to city in search of adventure. They never needed stability. Never feared the unknown.
Maybe that’s what she needed to do: pack a bag and just take off. Explore the world or, hell, even go to college like they’d always wanted her to.
She pushed the thoughts of her future away, telling herself it wasn’t the time for rash decisions. Not now. Not with the fog in her head. At that moment, she had one job: to stay awake and make it home safely. Everything else could wait until she felt like herself again.
Her arms ached from gripping the steering wheel so tightly as she turned onto her street.
After she parked, she looked at the box sitting on the passenger seat. It contained the sad remains of another failed job. She’d been through the routine so often that hearing “You’re fired” didn’t even sting any more.
It didn’t help that she’d fallen asleep in the breakroom—again.
This was just another failure in her twenty-seven years full of false starts. Every job, every new start, had felt the same. She’d hope that maybe she’d finally figure out what she was supposed to do with her life. But she never did.
She grabbed the box as she got out of the car. She walked to the crosswalk and waited for the light to change. The hair on her arms rose. Suddenly, she was wide awake.
Someone was watching her. She knew it.
She turned her head, scanning the street. It was quiet. She saw only the homeless man who’d become a regular sight over the past few months, often shouting apocalyptic warnings to anyone within earshot. But he was walking in the other direction.
She rolled her shoulders, trying to shake it off. It had to be the exhaustion making her paranoid. She glanced at the rooftops behind her for a second.
Nothing.
And yet the feeling remained.
Where were they?
She forced her eyes away from the spot on the roof, noticing that the light had changed. She hurried across the street, then opened the main door to the building. Once inside, she paused in the entryway to catch her breath, grateful that she no longer felt watched.
The climb to her third-floor apartment seemed endless. Iliana fumbled her keys before finally finding the lock. After closing the door, she rested against it.
Home at last.
She walked into the dark apartment, a place that used to feel safe. Once, she could relax there and lose herself in her books, but now it was full of grief and fear.
Iliana set the box on the coffee table and collapsed onto the couch, too drained to even kick off her shoes. She knew she should eat, process what had happened, and make plans for the future, but every option demanded more energy than she had left.
Head lolling to the side, she focused on a photo on her bookshelf.
Her parents. Grinning. Arms spread wide in front of the giant sequoias. She could imagine her mother chiding her for skipping dinner again.
“I know, Mom. I should eat something, but I’m just so tired.”
Her mother’s voice, gently scolding, played in her mind. She would’ve already been heating leftovers and making tea.
“I know you want me to be strong, but it’s just so hard without you.”
Iliana had never believed in ghosts or life after death, but that didn’t stop her from hoping her parents were together somewhere, watching over her. Talking to them seemed to help, even if they couldn’t answer back. It made the grief hurt less; at least for a little while.
She pushed herself off the couch and grabbed the armrest as dizziness hit. Barely keeping herself upright, she let her mind run through the nightly routine, pausing until the world stopped spinning.
Restroom. Change clothes. Lock the door. Sleep.
The doctor had told her to remove sharp objects, and internet advice suggested adding a lock to her bedroom door. It wasn’t the safest option in a fire or emergency, but given her recent history, the risk felt necessary.
She had to protect herself from the one thing she couldn’t outrun—herself.
At the thought of her bedroom, her supposed safe space, she forced her legs forward, counting each sluggish step.
She reached the bathroom first. Relieved herself. Brushed her teeth. Then she shuffled into her room.
Limbs heavy, she stripped off her work clothes and pulled on an oversized T-shirt. A cartoon T. rex on the front struggled to make a bed with tiny, useless arms. It usually made her smile, but now she barely noticed it.
She collapsed onto the mattress, sinking into the sheets.
Restroom. Change clothes…
The last thought she had before sleep dragged her under was that she couldn’t remember hearing the lock click.