Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Maya had wanted to die.

She often thought the clouds looked so inviting. Like that was where she would end up, when she died.

She had thought about death a few times. Not every day, but enough. It was tiring. Every morning she woke up immediately wishing she could fall back to sleep. But her sleeps would often be interrupted. Falling back to sleep was another chore. She just wanted to sleep. And never woke up if she had the choice.

Maya had chosen business because it sounded practical. Numbers made sense, markets had patterns, something she could calculate, should anything go wrong. If something failed, there must be a reason.

Unlike her mood.

She started noticing things were off since back in college. Her moods were wrong. It started subtly. At first, it was just fatigue. She pushed it aside, thinking the assignments and classes were getting to her. She made a note to eat at least once every day.

There were days she felt well enough to get through her classes and interact with friends and roommates, some days she just opened her eyes and closed them back, willing the days to just move on without her. And the days did go on without her just fine. So what was wrong with a few more days?

Then, she would feel guilty and gather what was left of her tiny strength to drag her legs to classes. The cycles repeated for the duration of her college year. Andy, her best friend and her roommate who was studying psychology at the same college, once asked if she was feeling okay.

“You’ve been quiet more than usual lately,” Andy said one night, watching Maya stare at a half-finished financial model.

“I’m fine. Just tired with classes,” Maya replied. It was easier to say that than having to explain what she was feeling, when Maya did not even know what she was feeling.

Lucky for Maya, Andy did not push, but she kept a close eye on her. Far enough for Maya to breathe without feeling like someone was breathing down her neck, close enough to react if Maya ever needed her help.

One day, Maya realised she was losing weight. Probably because she preferred to have plain porridge every day, not because she had no energy to cook or go out with friends to eat. Certainly, not that.

Some mornings, she opened her laptop to draft emails to the faculty office.

Subject: Leave of Absence

She never had the courage to send it. She thought about her mother. Her mother would be very disappointed if she took a leave now. Would be comparing her to her classmates walking across the stage to receive their scrolls while she was still struggling to finish hers. So, she closed her laptop, the emails saved to drafts instead, unsent.

She thought about it. There was only one year left. One year of this monotonous lifestyle and she would be free to find and create a new balance.

One year later, Maya graduated just like she wished. She did not fail, and she did not excel either. She graduated in the middle cohort: unremarkable and forgettable. The day she got her degree, she felt nothing. At least, there was no gap year, no flailing behind.

Work was supposed to change that. But it didn’t. If anything, it clarified what was going on. Corporate hours were longer than lectures. Targets replaced exams. Performance reviews replaced grades. The fatigue deepened into something denser and heavier. There were mornings she sat in the car outside the office building and calculated how many sick days she had left.

She was good at her job. She got her job done, her superior applauded her for her hard work. But that was the problem. Being competent enough meant no one noticed she was slowly eroding.

Andy was the one who broke the pattern.

They were twenty-eight, sitting cross-legged on the floor of their rented apartment, takeout containers between them, both complaining about work in different ways.

“I’m tired of companies pretending they care about employee wellbeing,” Andy said, animated as always. “They put posters in the pantry and call it culture.”

Maya huffed a quiet laugh.

“We could do it better,” Andy continued.

“Do what better?”

“Design real programs. Mental health policy. Manager training. Burnout prevention that’s actually data-driven. You understand operations. I understand behavioural science. We build something ourselves.”

Maya looked at her. Her proposal sounded ambitious and exhausting. It also sounded… different. She craved different. Whatever that could help her free of this fog.

Andy pulled out her laptop. She already had drafts—service outlines, potential workshop modules, a list of mid-sized firms that might pilot a programme.

“You handle structure,” Andy said. “Budgeting. Contracts. Scaling. I’ll handle content and delivery. We start small. One office. Just us.”

Start small.

The phrase felt manageable. Maya took exactly one day to agree. They planned meticulously, arranged for loans, searched for an office space. They made sure their plans took off first, before both of them handed in their resignations.

It was different, but only at first. It felt different because this felt like Maya managing her own life, not just an employee who had to obey and follow every order given to her. Their company grew over two years. Two-person company now turned eighteen members. They moved to a bigger office, renting the whole floor to make it happen.

Maybe, Maya thought, this was her life now. This constant fog was her now. There was no way to be separated. She had lived with it for four, five years. She could manage a few years more.

Then, one day Katherine, her mother, passed. And she felt stupidly guilty.

The call came on a Tuesday morning, which felt wrong. Tuesdays were for budget reviews and back-to-back client calls. Tuesdays were not supposed to be this.

Maya had been in the office pantry when her phone buzzed against the counter. She glanced at the screen. Her stepfather’s name, Richard, sat there blinking. Richard had called her twice in her entire life. Once, when her mother was hospitalised for a kidney stone. The other, for Christmas, two years before that, when her mother had probably handed him the phone and pointed at it.

She answered.

“Maya.” His voice was flat. Practised. “It’s about your mother.”

She knew before he finished the sentence. She listened. She noted each word the way she noted figures in a spreadsheet. Cardiac arrest. In her sleep. Peaceful and quick. She thanked him. Told him she would arrange her leave. Said she would be there. He said he would send the details. They hung up.

She stood in the pantry for another minute, maybe two. Then she put her phone face-down on the counter and looked out through the small window at the building opposite. A man on the fifth floor was eating his lunch at his desk. Completely unbothered to Maya's misery.

She watched him finish. Then she went back to her desk.

She did not tell Andy until that evening, when Andy noticed Maya had not spoken for hours and came to sit on the edge of her desk, blocking her second monitor.

“Hey.” Andy’s voice was careful. Softer than usual. “What happened?”

Maya blinked at her. Her mouth felt dry. The words felt borrowed. “My mother died this morning.”

Andy made a sound that was not a word. She reached out and put both hands on either side of Maya’s face. Maya let her. She still did not cry.

She did not cry until she was in the shower that night, when the hot water ran out and turned cold and she had not noticed, and then suddenly she had. She slid down the tiles and sat on the floor and cried the way she had not cried since she was a child. Ugly. Breathless. The kind that felt like vomiting. The kind that did not relieve anything.

She cried for her mother. For the woman her mother had been before Richard, before the small town, before the slow reordering of her mother's life around a new man with less and less room for Maya in it. She cried for her father too, though he had been dead more than fifteen years. She cried because she had not called enough. Because the last time she visited was eighteen months ago and she was supposed to stay for three days and left early anyway because the fog had been bad that week and she could not explain why she needed to go. Only that she had to.

She had told her mother she was tired. Her mother had said, You work too hard, Maya, you always did. Maya had said nothing to correct her. Because how do you explain that it was not work that was exhausting you but the basic requirement of existing.

Maya had not corrected her. And now she never could.

The small town existed the way small towns did. Like time had simply lost interest in it. The same shophouses. The same narrow roads. The same thick yellow morning light.

Andy drove. Maya had not asked her to come. Andy had simply appeared at her door that morning with a small bag and her car keys and said, I’ll drive. Maya had not argued.

She watched the landscape through the passenger window. City to suburb to something slower. She thought about her mother as a young woman, before Richard, before widowhood, before Maya herself, and realised she could not picture it. Her mother had always just been her mother. The woman who kept her hair pinned back on one side. Who had a specific way of sighing when she was not going to say what she was thinking.

The cemetery was small and old. The graves were close together. Richard was there with relatives Maya recognised and many she did not. He shook her hand. He looked hollowed out. Maya felt a brief, unexpected tenderness for him. It came and went before she could do anything with it.

The burial was short. A pastor said some words about Katherine with the practised warmth of someone who had known her in passing. Maya stood at the edge of the gathering and watched the casket lower and felt her grief compress into something very small and very dense inside her chest.

She had thought she might cry here. She did not. Andy stood close enough that their arms were touching. That was all. It was enough for now.

What Maya felt standing there was quieter than the shower floor. And in some ways worse. It was the grief of accumulation. Every unreturned call. Every visit cut short. Every weekend she had told herself, I'll call her, and did not. Every conversation where she gave her mother the surface version. Fine. Busy. Work is good. And withheld the rest. Because explaining the rest would have required her mother to believe the rest, and her mother had been raised to believe that low moods were something you pushed through with discipline, prayer, and enough sleep.

“You're too sensitive, Maya. You always have been,” her mother had said. She had not meant it cruelly. That was the thing. It was just how she responded to things she did not know how to hold. Maya had stopped trying to explain herself at nineteen and never quite started again.

Maya scattered a handful of earth. She said brief, correct things to Richard before walking back to the car. 

Andy said nothing on the drive home. The music was low. Maya watched the landscape reverse itself as the suburb slowly turned to city, and thought about how you could leave a place and return to it. How you could not do the same with people.

The weeks after were quiet in the way a room was quiet after something loud had happened in it.

Maya went back to work almost mechanically. She answered emails and attended meetings. Three separate clients had asked how she was on three different occasions, and each time she had replied that she was fine, just tired. It was a busy quarter. The words came out easily. She had been saying versions of them for years, and all of them felt hollow.

The guilt did not come in waves. It came in ambushes. A song on the radio her mother liked. Afternoon light on a Sunday illuminating the kitchen, the way it used to when her mother was cooking and humming to herself. When she opened the fridge and reached for something and thought, Mum would eat this, she always liked— and she would pause. Because her mother was no more.

Maya dreamed about her once. They were in the kitchen of the house Maya grew up in, before the move, before Richard. Her mother was cooking. Maya was sitting at the table watching her. Completely ordinary. When she woke up, she tried to hold onto it a few moments longer. It dissolved anyway. By the time she reached the bathroom, the dream was gone.

She kept thinking about things she had missed. Her mother at graduation, standing at the edge of the crowd, looking for happiness in Maya’s face and finding something careful and neutral instead. Her mother on Maya’s last visit, placing a cup of tea on the side table without being asked. Small, wordless things because that had always been her mother’s language. Her mother asking, How are you really, in a voice that meant she was asking but also meant she was hoping the answer was simple.

Maya had always given her the simple answer. Told herself it was kindness, not to confuse her mother with complicated things. But she understood now it had also been something else. She had not wanted to watch her mother’s face rearrange itself around something her mind could not comprehend.

And now Maya never had to. And now she never could. She sat with that for a long time.

A few months after the burial, she found herself standing in the doorway of Andy’s room at ten-thirty on a Thursday night. Andy was in bed with a book. Maya had not planned to say anything. She had been on her way to the kitchen for water. She sat by Andy’s feet.

“I think I’m depressed,” Maya said, eyes forward staring holes into the empty wall. “Like clinically depressed. Not just an expression.”

Andy put down the book slowly. She was hesitant to reach for her hand, but Maya did not flinch or push her away when she did. “What do you need?” Andy asked softly.

“I need help.” Maya cried in Andy’s arms. Just like any other night, crying did not help much but saying it out loud, acknowledging it, helped a little.

“Okay, we’ll get you help.”

That night, Andy did not sleep. The next day, Andy found her a well-calibre psychiatrist, and luck was apparently on Maya’s side that day when they found one who could accommodate her on the same day. Andy drove her to the clinic and promised to wait when the nurse called Maya inside. Andy gave her hand a tight squeeze, some strength to borrow.

Dr. Tan was the best psychiatrist Maya could ask for. He was patient, calm, soft-spoken but never afraid to say the truth when warranted. Maya cried, sobbing with her head down, letting the tears and snot run down her face. He just silently handed her tissues.

Maya came out of that consultation room with a diagnosis: major depressive disorder. He prescribed her a low dose medication to start, explained what to expect. Nausea, loose stool, fatigue, insomnia, among many others. He told her that her body would take time to adjust and she would probably not notice any positive changes for the first two weeks.

That did not sound good.

But she was tired. Tired of being tired, of being low all the time. So, she agreed to try. She went home with a two-week prescription and an appointment to return after. Andy drove them home. Maya could see she was dying to ask. She didn't, and Maya was relieved. When she was feeling better, she promised Andy silently. Andy seemed to understand.

During their next meeting, Maya was not feeling any better. If anything, the stomach cramps, nausea, and insomnia were making things worse. Dr. Tan reassured her it would take time. He sent her home with an increased dose. Maya was reluctant. If the low dose was already making her sick, wouldn’t more make her sicker?

But she endured. For the future me, she thought.

Over time, the side effects reduced. Every two weeks he increased the dose until it reached the optimum. He was hopeful, and in turn, Maya felt hopeful too. For almost two months she took the medication as ordered, never missing a single dose. But she did not feel better. Or worse. Just static.

She told Dr. Tan that at her three-month review. When he asked her to rate her mood, zero being very sad and ten being very happy, she said three. He paused, thinking. Then he suggested switching to a different drug class entirely. He would introduce it slowly, overlapping the two medications, tapering one down while building the other up.

She agreed again.

The new drug was worse. Stomach cramps and no appetite because food made her nauseous. Sleep was shorter and harder to come by. She spent more time in the bathroom in those first weeks than she did anywhere else.

But it would be better. So she did not give up. Not yet. And then, slowly, it was.

She noticed it in small things first. The way she finished a full meal without thinking about it. How she slept past six on a Saturday and woke up feeling, not good exactly, but rested. She laughed at something Andy said one evening—a real laugh, not the polite kind she had been giving out for years—and Andy looked at her with an expression Maya could not quite read. Surprised, maybe. Or relieved.

She went back to work. Sat in meetings and actually listened. Sent emails without drafting them four times first. There were mornings she got out of the car and walked into the office without sitting in the carpark calculating how long she could stay before someone noticed.

One afternoon, she and Andy ate lunch on the small balcony of their office. Andy was complaining about a client. Maya was eating her noodles. The sun was out. It was ordinary and completely unremarkable and Maya thought, quietly, so this was what it felt like.

She was almost at five months on the new drug, almost at remission. Dr. Tan had used that word carefully at her last appointment, the way you did not want to say something out loud in case you broke it. Maya had nodded and said nothing, but she had held the word the whole drive home.

Almost.

She had been meaning to go for weeks. She told herself it was the distance. The small town was three hours away, she had a full week of client meetings, it was not a good time. She told herself she would go on the weekend. Then the next weekend. Then she booked a train ticket and cancelled it two days before.

On the morning of the anniversary, she woke up early. She made herself coffee and sat at the kitchen table, watching the clock ticking. The train she was supposed to take left at eight-fifteen.

Andy appeared in the doorway at nine-thirty, dressed and holding her car keys.

“I’ll drive,” she said.

Maya looked at her coffee. “You don’t have to.”

“I’ll drive,” Andy said again.

They did not speak much on the way there. The landscape did its familiar thing, city to suburb to something slower. Maya watched it and felt the quiet inside her chest shift into something heavier. Not the fog exactly. Something more specific. More located.

The cemetery was the same. Small and old, except there were no unfamiliar faces in black suits and dresses, just the two of them.

She had never returned here since the burial. Never had the courage to. She remembered standing at the edge of the gathering with Andy’s arm against hers. She remembered scattering earth. She had been numb then, moving through the ceremony on borrowed steadiness. She was not numb now.

She stood at the cemetery gate. The path was short. She could see the plot from where she was standing. Her mother’s headstone was new, still pale against the older stones around it. Next to her father’s, just like Katherine always wanted.

She stood there for a long time. Andy did not say anything. She did not move toward her or away. Just stood nearby, present the way she had always been present.

Maya’s hands had gone cold. She was aware of her own breathing. She thought about walking down that path and standing in front of that headstone and she thought about all the things she had never said and she thought about how saying them now, to a piece of engraved stone, would not change any of it. She could not make herself move. After a while, she turned around and walked back to the car. She did not cry and that was almost worse. The tears would have meant something was moving. This was just stillness. The particular stillness of a door you could not open.

Andy started the engine without a word. On the drive back, somewhere on the highway, the fog came home. It did not announce itself. Just came quietly, like it had never really left. Like the last few months had been a courtesy it had extended to her and now the courtesy was over. She watched the city reappear on the horizon and thought about how she had been so close. She looked up to the sky and thought about the clouds. The way they looked so inviting.

Almost.

At her next appointment, when Dr. Tan asked her to rate her mood, she said two. She told him about the clouds, and death. This was the first time since she walked into his room about a year ago that he ever looked so worried. He looked at her for a moment. Set down his pen and gathered his hands.

"I want to talk to you about another option," he said.

He told her about an intranasal drug. It was a fast-acting antidepressant. Recent studies showed great improvements in patients with failed oral treatments. But it was costly. Her insurance would not cover the cost for the whole regimen. And the regimen would last for at least twenty-four weeks, where she would have to be presented to the clinic for each treatment administration because she would need to be monitored.

She asked for a few days to think. He gave her a week to come again.

Andy picked her up again that day. She noticed Maya was unusually quiet, lost in her thoughts the whole ride home. At dinner, where Maya pushed her food around with the fork, tired of pretending to eat, she told Andy.

Andy listened carefully, never once interrupted her. Maya talked slowly, uncertain of how she would react. Twenty-four weeks of treatment meant twenty-four weeks of being less than half-present for the company.

Andy held her hand across the table.

“Don’t worry about the company. It’s doing well,” Andy said. “Do it, if you want to. I’ll help.”

Maya nodded, sombrely. “Thank you.”

She knew how difficult she could be and how much of a burden she had been. With her low moods, her frequent leaves from work, leaving most house chores and company decisions in Andy’s hands, but Andy stayed. Andy helped. Andy supported.

She called her doctor the next morning, to tell him of her decision. He arranged for the payment and medicine procurement within the week, so that when Maya came in for her next appointment, everything would be ready for her first treatment.

Today was the first day of treatment. Andy had dropped her off and reluctantly went back to office after Maya reassured her that she was in good hands and would call her later after she was done. Waiting for a few minutes to be called in by her doctor, Maya sat nervously in the waiting area.

Truth be told, she had scoured the internet about the information on esketamine. The results were fascinating, but Maya was mostly worried about the immediate side effects she would experience. Dizziness, headache, nausea, and… dissociation? She had looked up the meaning of that word. Dissociation, in psychiatry particularly, meant separation of some aspects of mental functioning from conscious awareness.

Okay, she understood those words separately but not together.

Upon further reading, she found out the elements of dissociation were depersonalisation or the feeling of out-of-body experience, derealisation or the feeling where the world felt unreal, and memory lapses. All those sounded scary to her.

“Miss Bishop,” the doctor called for her attention. She stood up, rubbing her slightly sweaty hands on her jeans. The doctor gestured her into his room.

He greeted her once she settled into the uncomfortable chair.

“How are you feeling today?”

“The same as always,” she replied flatly.

“I have the medication ready and we’re going to have you monitored during the whole process. We’ll need to have you connected to the continuous vitals monitoring, just as precaution,” Dr. Tan explained and Maya nodded. He explained a little about the mechanism and the immediate side-effects; things Maya did not admit she had spent the previous sleepless nights reading. “Do you have any questions so far?”

She shook her head.

“Okay, let’s go to the treatment room.”

Maya followed him. The room was not that big. There was a big cabinet filled with medical supplies that lined on one side of the wall, a reclinable bed in the middle of the room with a few rolling chairs next to it, and a monitor hung above the bed with black and grey wires coming out of it. Maya noticed a red emergency cart sat by the head of the bed and a female nurse was standing next to it. He gestured to the bed for her to sit.

“I will need to have you reclined at forty-five degrees,” he explained as he set the bed. “And have you hooked up to this monitor.”

With the blood pressure cuff in her left arm and pulse oximeter in her right thumb, Maya reclined on the bed and listened to the monitor beeping in a fast tempo, reflecting her nervousness. He took one reading of vital signs, satisfied when everything came back normal, though he smiled when Maya's heartbeat jumped slightly a few times.

He opened a small package that held the medication. He carefully explained to Maya how to hold the small device, how to place the nozzle in her nostrils adequately, when to press and inhale.

“It may cause some post-nasal drip, meaning some of the medication droplets may fall back down the back of your nose and throat. Don’t worry, it’s safe and normal, but it’ll taste bitter.” He handed her the device. Maya looked at it, taking in the weight of the device in her hand. “Any questions?”

Yes, she had one. “How long will it take?”

“It depends on individuals but for most people it’ll last up to two hours. But over time, your body will adjust to it and each session will be shorter. I have patients who were done within twenty minutes.”

Two hours. She could do two hours.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

Maya nodded and held the device to her nose. Pinching the device when it was in her right nostril, she felt the tinge of stinging cold spray. She repeated the same step to her left nostril. The doctor handed her some tissues and collected the device to discard it.

“Now, lean back and relax. We’ll be here.” 

Maya rested her head against the bed and closed her eyes. She let her senses accompany her.

With her eyes closed, she could hear the doctor and the nurse shuffling around softly, the rustling of their white plastic aprons, and the rolling chair moving. She tried to take a deep breath but it only spurred the remnants of medicine in her nose to fall backward into her throat, forcing her to swallow the bitter taste. She was about to move on to her touch sensation when she felt it.

The world was tilting. She was aware her eyes were closed but somehow, she could see the room. The room expanded briefly before it shrunk so much, the walls were touching her. She thought she felt her legs moving but she was very much sure she was lying there motionless in the bed.

Oh, so this is it.

And then, she was flying. She was floating, hovering over the room, looking back at the doctor, who was talking to the nurse, and also… herself? She saw herself lying in the bed, her own eyes closed.

This felt surreal.

Then the scene changed. She was flying over the vast blue sea and through the mountains, gliding so gracefully as if she was Peter Pan. For the first time in so many years, she felt light. She felt nothing. No burden to carry. No worries to think. Just light.

She flew through the open skies and landed softly in the fields of tall grass. She looked around, feeling the breeze on the skin. It was unreal but felt so much real.

Looking around, she realised she was on a small hill on a cliff, overlooking the ocean. The sea was rough, it sent rolls of white foamy waves crashing to the shores. She sat down, enjoying the view alone.

Or at least, she thought she was alone.

“Hi.” A voice called out, making Maya jumped. She looked back.

The sun up high in the sky was too bright to make out the face. But it was a woman, Maya noticed, dressed in a flowy white short-sleeved dress. Maya held up her hand to her forehead, hoping to block out the sun. Hoping it would help her to see the woman clearly.

The woman must have noticed her struggle. So, she walked closer, successfully blocking the sun with her head. Maya stared at her openly. With the sun behind her head, it made the woman’s long brown tresses glowed golden at the edges. The white dress made her looked even more ethereal.

Is she dead? Maya thought. Dr. Tan did not mention anything about death during the procedure. Although if death did occur, it would unlikely because of the medication.

Maya looked back to the woman. Blue eyes met brown.

“Hi,” Maya replied finally. The woman pointed to the space next to Maya and Maya nodded. The woman smiled and she sat down.

They did not speak for a while, both returned their attentions to the loud crashing waves. The woman hugged her knees closed to her chest, as if she was protecting something. Maya leant back on her hands.

“Are you real?”

Maya snapped to look at the woman. She did not look back at Maya, just stared out at the sea with melancholy.

“Me?” Maya looked down at her hands. Surely, this was not real. She was dissociating. This place was not real. She could fly, for godness' sake. “I don’t know.”

The woman hummed.

“Are you?” Maya asked back.

“I think so,” the woman replied. “I’m not sure anymore.”

“Why is that?”

“I’ve been here for a long time now, and it’s the first time I ever seen anyone here. So I don’t know.”

Maya was slightly taken aback.

“What do you mean?” Maya asked.

The woman’s eyes left the ocean to look at Maya. “I mean exactly what I said. You’re the first person I’ve seen ever since I’m here.”

“Where is here?”

“I don’t know. One day, I woke up, lying in the field, staring up at the sky.” She smiled. “This is my first interaction with another human in… I don’t know how long.”

Maya frowned. “So… are you saying you’re dissociating too?”

“I don’t know. But this feels like a dream.” The woman scrunched her nose.

“So, what… are we co-dreaming? Like are we sharing the same dream? Is that what you’re saying?”

The woman shrugged. “I didn’t say that. I’m just saying it’s nice to finally have someone.” She smiled before adding, “Are you staying?”

Maya paused. Is she? Hopefully not. She had real life to live, work to do, friends to see, plans to make. As much as this had felt lighter and freeing, this was only temporary. And Maya was sure this woman was a figment of her dissociation. And she would wake up and forget about this.

“I don’t—”

Maya heard a loud commotion. She looked around. There was nothing there. The woman seemed to not hear it. She just looked back at Maya, disturbed by Maya’s sudden action.

“Do you hear that?” Maya asked. The sound seemed louder, voices.

“Hear what?”

Footsteps. Door opening and closing.

“Miss Bishop.”

“That? You don’t hear that?” Maya pointed upwards, as if it would point at the source of the sounds. The woman shook her head.

“Miss Bishop, can you hear me?”

Maya saw flashes of images. A male in white coat. His face was a few inches from hers. He pinched Maya’s socked toes. A female performed a sternal rub. Maya knew those should feel painful but she felt nothing.

Blinking her eyes, she looked around. She was still on that small hill of grass with the woman, who was now looking at her with worries. Her mouth was moving, but Maya could not make out any word she was saying.

A tightening sensation around her left arm made her blinked.

”Prepare the intubation tray.”

The next thing Maya knew, her eyes flew open, and she was staring back at Dr. Tan’s face. She blinked a few times, still disoriented and a little nauseous. She took rapid, shallow breaths.

“Hey, take it easy," he said. “Deep breath. Take your time.” He guided Maya slowly.

Maya breathed in slowly, nodded, although she had questions. For now, she just closed her eyes and slowly drifted to sleep. When she woke up again fifteen minutes later from her nap, Maya was feeling better. No more dizziness or nausea. No more out-of-body sensation. She felt just as she had before the treatment.

The doctor had explained that she went out cold for two hours. However, ten minutes before she stirred, the nurse had noticed her breathing was shallow. She alerted the doctor, who noted that Maya was taking longer between breaths and it spurred him to try to wake her up. And she was not responding to his calls, gentle shaking, and even some painful stimuli.

They had been worried that she might stop breathing and had prepared the intubation tray when she finally opened her eyes, much to the relief of everyone in the room.

“Do you remember anything?” he asked, pen scribbling some notes.

Maya tried to recall anything. It was… fuzzy. “I remembered the feeling but I don’t exactly remember anything. Like I know I did something but I don’t know what. Is that normal?”

“It’s perfectly normal. This medication impaired the memory encoding while you’re under. So it’s possible you won’t remember what you were seeing after waking up. But if you ever recall something that you want to talk about, I’m always listening,” Dr. Tan assured her.

The doctor had called Andy in as soon as Maya was awake and she was given instructions and precautions to look after. Maya was not supposed to drive or operate any machinery for at least a day post-treatment, and Andy was advised to bring Maya to the emergency care immediately if she ever presented with any of the warning signs.

Andy thanked him and they walked slowly to her car. Along the ride back to their shared apartment, they were both silent. Only the soft music from the radio filled the air. Andy was focused on the road and thought Maya was asleep. But Maya just stared out the window, turning over the feeling that she had forgotten something.

Her next session was on Thursday. She came in early, waiting for the doctor. This time, she did not feel as nervous. Just a little scared when she thought about how she was merely seconds away from being intubated because her body went into such a deep sedative state. But Dr. Tan had explained that her body would adapt to the medication, so hopefully, it would be better today.

The doctor called her in, asked a few questions about her mood, eating and sleeping habits, and any suicidal ideation. Those could have been altered drastically in some patients, he explained, and he told Maya to expect those same questions at the beginning of each session and to tell him if anything worse had changed. Maya understood.

Reclining in the same bed as she did last Monday, Maya held the device to her nostril. After pinching it and handing it back to him, she leant back and closed her eyes, ready.

It started almost the same as last Monday. She saw herself lying in that bed from above, detached, before she turned and flew up through the roof. This time, she flew over a long stretch of yellow field, jumped into the ocean, swam with the fish, and talked to a blue whale. Then she swam to the shore and jumped over the cliff to sit on the cliffside.

And to her surprise, the woman from last time was there.

“You,” Maya breathed out. “How are you still here?”

The woman smiled and plopped down next to Maya. “I told you I’ve been here for a while now.”

Maya chuckled. The woman’s presence felt comfortable, a constant by now. “I can imagine anything I want, but I can never imagine anything new about you.”

“You made me up?” the woman asked, incredulous. “I made you up. You’re the one not real.”

“Wait, what?”

“This,” the woman said, hands gesturing around them, “—is my space. This is my dream. You’re the one who came in here unannounced, after you left so rudely last time. If anything, you’re the anomaly here.”

Maya blinked. She had not expected to feel confused here.

“Let’s start again. I’m Maya.” Maya held out her hand. The woman narrowed her eyes but took her hand, anyway.

“Carina.”

“Did I hear accent there?”

“Italy.”

That was cool, Maya thought, that her mind could conjure an Italian woman complete with the lilted accent. But Carina said Maya was her conjuration. This was starting to be complicated.

“Tell me something specific about yourself. Something I couldn’t have made up,” Maya said.

The woman paused for a while, and said, “I have a younger brother named Andrea.”

Andrea. That was Andy’s real name. For a second, Maya had almost believed her. Of course, her own mind had made the names up.

Maya chuckled, “Andrea. As in Andrea ‘Andy’ Herrera, my best friend.” She shook her head, turning to look at the sea.

Carina huffed. “How are you going to know if whatever I said is the truth and not something your mind made up?”

“Fair point," Maya replied, but neither bothered to continue talking.

They sat next to each other, facing the calm ocean. There were no loud waves or strong winds. Just soft breezes that passed by now and then, sending the tall grasses ruffling against each other.

Maya closed her eyes, swaying to the sound of rustling leaves.

Carina hummed to a song. Maya opened her eyes to look at her.

“What’s that?” she asked.

Carina paused. “I don’t know. But I kept hearing it. Like it was constantly in the background of my mind. Could never make out the words, just… soft music.”

Carina resumed humming, and Maya listened. She hummed with her eyes closed, swaying slowly to each note like she knew it by heart. Maya closed her eyes too, racking her brain if it ever sounded familiar, if she ever heard it in passing while in the cars or at the coffee shops.

When Carina’s humming stopped and Maya opened her eyes, she was staring at the white ceiling. She felt the absence of it before she understood what she was missing.

Dr. Tan allowed her to get her bearings. When the dizziness went away, she pushed herself from the bed to sit up. He came over, asking the usual post-treatment questions. Confident she could walk without tripping, she walked out to where Andy was waiting.

The ride back to their apartment still felt like she was forgetting something.

Each time Maya went under on Mondays and Thursdays, Carina would be there. A constant. She would greet Maya brightly each time, happy to see the only familiar face around. The fourth time they met, Carina was tired just sitting around.

“Are you going to just come and go as you please, and just spend the time sitting around looking at the ocean?” Carina asked.

Maya looked at her from the corner of her eye, not bothering to turn. “It’s peaceful here.”

“Yes, I know. But I’ve seen this same ocean, this same field of grass, the same tree so many times now. And you’re here, something new.” Carina pointed at her and then at herself. “And I’m here too.”

“Okay?”

“Use me. Talk to me. Discuss and debate something. Even if you’re not real, at least I’ll have something to do.”

Maya frowned. “Excuse me, I am very much real. Just not here real. But in real life real.”

“You are?” Carina tilted her head. That seemed to be intriguing Carina. “Because I believe I am too.”

“Really?” Fully turned to face Carina, Maya shifted closer. “Like you’re a real person?”

“Sì,” Carina said, worrying her lip. Frowning, she added, “But I think I was very sick. Still am. I don’t know, everything’s hazy.”

“Wait, sick how?” Maya leaned forward. “Like, right now? Are you... are you actually in a hospital somewhere?”

Carina looked away. “I don’t know. Everything’s hazy. I remember pain, and then... nothing. Then this place. And then you.”

Maya’s stomach dropped. She was not talking to her imagination. Couldn't be. Her imagination would not be confused about its own existence.

“You said you’ve been here for a long time.” Maya paused. “Does that mean you’re…”

“Dead?” Carina added, deadpanned.

“Oh, god, I hope not. I can’t handle a real ghost while I am still trying to get rid of my own.”

Carina laughed. It sounded like the first ray of sunlight, peeking through the dark clouds after the heavy stormy rain. It was a sound Maya had not heard in a while. Genuine laughter. Maya smiled at the sound.

“Tell me about yourself,” Carina said. Maya’s eyebrow perked. “Just talk. If you turned out to be my imagination, I would wake up someday feeling really amazed that my brain can create something this complex.”

Maya nodded. “Fine.” She pursed her lips, thinking. “I’m Maya, thirty-one. My best friend and I own a small company where we cater corporate mental health consultancy to businesses and companies.”

She paused again. How far could she go with the information? If Carina was anything like Maya, she would probably wake up and not remember anything too. So whatever Maya had said here would stay here.

“I’ve been depressed since college, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. People talk about stigma, about how others perceive you, but they never talk enough about internalised stigma. Where you can’t even to admit it to yourself. Because you think it’s a weakness.

“I was one of those people. I pushed through, and told myself ‘Hey, I did it. So it must not be depression, right?’ But I was wrong. I just kept bottling it up until one day it exploded.” She paused. “And it did explode right in my face. And oral medication had failed twice and the new treatment brought me here. So, expect to see me often from now on.”

Maya ended with a smile that Carina reciprocated. Carina bumped her shoulder against Maya’s.

“Hey, that is very brave of you. And I know the journey is tiring and unconventional, but… I’m glad it brings you here. That I get to know you. Even though we’re only meeting here.”

Maya nodded. The soft breeze blew in their faces.

“So, like these sudden appearance and disappearance are because of the meds?”

“Yes. I would appear while I’m under and go when the effects run out.”

“Okay. That would explain that.” Carina smiled. “All these times I thought you were very rude. Turns out, you don’t have a say in it.”

They paused again. Both were turning back to watch the seagulls flying over the shore. Somewhere in the distant sea, Maya swore she saw leaping dolphins.

“This is…” Carina started but trailed, unable to find her words.

“Crazy? Amazing?”

“È incredibile. Non posso credere che questo stia accadendo.” Carina said with a sigh.

That surprised Maya. She knew almost nothing about the Italian language, other than scusi and grazie, so could her own mind really be capable of constructing full sentences in it?

Maybe Carina was real, too. Like real real. And Carina said she was here all alone for a long time. What had happened to her in real life?

“What does that mean?” Maya asked instead.

“I said this is incredible and I can’t believe this is happening. What are the explanations for this…” she trailed, searching for words, “phenomenon? Am I using the correct term?”

Maya nodded with a smile. She got what Carina was trying to say. What were the chances of two people sharing a metaphysical space? There had to be a scientific explanation for it. Maya was practical and logical by nature. She would have looked this up if she had the chance. However, whenever she was lucid again, she would not remember any of it.

That saddened her a little. Carina seemed to sense that.

“Why? What’s wrong?” she asked.

Maya sighed. “I would love to remember you when I wake up.”

“You don’t?”

“No. When I wake up, I just feel something is missing. Like I am aware I am forgetting something. But when I’m here, it’s like I never left. We could pick up whatever we were talking.” Maya sighed. “That’s…”

“Amazing, right? I would love to study human brains. But I love and care about women's reproductive health more.”

“You’re a doctor?” Maya guessed.

“I am. Was. Am.” Carina groaned. “I hope I still have a job when I leave this place.” She gasped. “What if I forget everything?”

She was spiralling. Maya reached over and place her hand over Carina’s to ground her.

“You won’t. You’ll probably just forget about this place and me, but not your real world skills.” Maya paused and quickly added, “I think.”

Carina deflated and shot her a look. “That did not sound comforting at all.”

“I tried.”

That day, Maya left again without a word. One second, she was listening to Carina talking about a book, the next second, she found herself back in Dr. Tan’s treatment room.

The next time Maya found herself on the small hill, she found Carina sitting against the tree. Maya came over and immediately apologised to her.

“I’m sorry I left like that. You were telling me about something and I just left,” Maya started, situating herself next to Carina.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Carina waved her hand around. “I know it is beyond your control. I am already grateful that you’re still here and talking to me again.”

Maya looked at Carina. She wondered what it felt like to be stuck in the same place, seeing the same view for god knows how long. To be excited at another presence. To be able to speak to someone after probably talking to herself or the tree and the birds. To be left abruptly alone because Maya could not warn her.

It must be very lonely.

Maya vowed to at least try to tell her this time onward. During her first session, Maya had been aware of both worlds at once—the treatment room and this place, whatever it was. That meant she could do it again. She just had to listen carefully to her body. She told Carina that much. Carina smiled.

“But don’t push yourself,” Carina said. Maya assured her.

They sat under the tree, listening to the leaves rustling and birds chirping overhead.

“I’m curious,” Maya said after a while. “You remembered about your younger brother and the fact that you’re a doctor. But why can’t you remember what is happening to you?”

Carina shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe my long term memory is still intact and whatever happened to me is recent.”

Made sense, Maya thought.

“Tell me more,” she added. Carina smiled.

“I lived in a town at the foot of Mount Etna in Sicily with my papà, mamma, and fratello. I swam at the beach almost every weekend, soaking in the sun. The streets were narrow and steep and I had fallen countless times chasing my brother. But we would always laugh and giggle and get up again.”

Maya could almost see it. She closed her eyes, trying to conjure the town. She could smell the salty brine from the sea, a hint different that the one she and Carina were currently facing. It was as if she was transported to the town. She smiled, listening to what Carina said.

“I would go to the fish market with mamma and the people were loud, but lively and kind. Mamma would hold my hand on the way back and she would cook us meals with fresh pasta and seafood.”

There was a long pause and Maya had thought she was up in the real world. She opened her eyes and saw Carina looking out at the sky longingly. Her eyes looked so sad, yearning for something she could not reach.

“Do you miss Italy?”

Carina snapped out of her trance to look at Maya. She hugged her knees, her white dress swayed by the wind.

“I miss everything.”

That sentence carried a lot of unspoken meanings.

I missed my home.
I missed my family.
I missed the people.
I missed real world.

For a while, no one spoke. They let the pregnant silence blanket them. Maya did not know what to say to make Carina feel better. Maya had the luxury of escaping the weight of the real world for somewhere light and free. There was nothing to worry here. Maya was healing and resting in real time.

Unfortunately, Carina did not have the same opportunity. Maya did not even know where Carina was. Even Carina did not know it. She was out there somewhere, suspended in time, and there was nothing Maya could do to help.

Carina tilted her body to lean her head on Maya’s shoulder. Maya let her.

This she could do. Maya could give her some comfort whenever she was here. Even though she very much wished she could extend the same comfort to Carina in real world.

Maya sensed her body was waking up. She could feel her toes twitching, sounds bleeding in from the other side. She hated to go, to leave Carina again. But at least she knew she would come back again in a few days.

Maya shifted. Carina looked up.

“I’m waking up,” Maya said, pointing to the sky, as if that was where she came from. Carina smiled sadly. Maya squeezed Carina’s knee. “I’ll be back. We’ll talk more. You’ll tell me your best memories and I’ll tell you mine.”

Maya stood up as Carina stayed seated.

“You’re giving me homework now?” Carina laughed.

“Something to look forward to.” Maya could feel she had not much time. “I’ll see you again.”

When Andy had picked her up from the clinic, she spent the whole drive home feeling a little dizzy. She went to bed to sleep it off. When she woke up in the late afternoon feeling refreshed, Andy asked what she wanted for dinner.

Maya replied with: “Seafood pasta.”

Andy’s head perked from the opened fridge.

“Why the sudden change in taste? You always prefer light salad or sandwiches after the sessions.”

Maya shrugged. “I don’t know.” She really didn’t. “I just have a craving for Italian food.”

Andy did not question her anymore and she was thankful. Because Maya would not know how to answer her. This was different than the mental fog she had. This felt much deeper than that.

They went out to get store-bought pasta and frozen prawn and squid. Maya pulled up the first seafood pasta recipe she could find on the internet. They cooked together and sat at the small table with a plate each. Andy had wine with her pasta. Maya could not drink, so she had cold water instead. It tasted good, though Maya knew it could be better.

The next time Maya saw Carina, the brunette was lying on the grass, watching the white clouds go by. The grass around her swayed lightly in the breeze, enveloping Carina. Maya copied her.

“I made seafood pasta after we talked last time,” Maya started.

Carina’s neck almost snapped at the speed she turned to Maya. “Really? How?”

“We bought the ingredients and followed the recipe online. It’s not that hard.” Maya cushioned her head with her arm.

“I’m not asking that, scema.” Carina rolled her eyes but she was smiling. “I’m asking how can you remember? I thought you forget everything here.”

Maya did not know what that Italian word meant, but judging by the light teasing tone, she was sure Carina just called her stupid or silly or something similar.

“I don’t know.” Maya believed that sentence was a common theme by now. “Just that I felt like eating Italian food. Looking back, it was probably something you planted in my subconscious when you talked about your mamma.”

Carina hummed. “So, how was it?”

“It was good. But I’m thinking about making my own fresh pasta next time. You know, just to be authentic.”

“Oh, yes. You should definitely try that next time.”

Maya shifted her body to fully facing Carina. Carina mirrored her, cushioning her cheek on her hand. 

“Now, I believe I gave you homework last time.” They shared a small laugh. “Tell me your best memories.”

Carina pursed her lower lip, her eyes moving around.

“During medical school, my best friend, Gabriella and I loved doing random trips. The classes were packed and we only had Sundays off, and one Sunday morning, Gabri told me she wanted to see the windmill.” Carina laughed, lost in her memory.

“I said, Okay, then we rented a car to drive about an hour up the hill. We did not bring anything, it was unplanned and completely out of nowhere. Just the two of us and everything we had on us.

“We just sat there in silence, listening to the nature, took some photos, and went back a few hours later, just in time for a late lunch. It didn’t sound much, but I remembered feeling grateful to have such a good friend in Gabri. Someone who matched my energy so well.” Carina smiled. “I’d say she was one of the reasons I survived medical school.”

Maya watched Carina smile, lost in her younger days. Maya wondered how much time had passed for Carina since that memory. She carefully ran her eyes over Carina’s features, trying to guess.

Carina had flawless skin. It was smooth and clear, but marred with soft wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, evidence of her laugh-filled life. Her lips pink, even without lipstick. A beauty mark dotted at the left corner of her lower lip. Her nose looked like it was sculpted. Her brown eyes bright and when the sun hit them right, they glowed like embers. She did not look that much older than Maya.

Then, the brown eyes looked at her. Those perfectly trimmed brows were raised, as if waiting.

“Sorry?” Maya asked. She had zoned out.

“I asked you about what is your best memory.”

“Oh, right.” It was Maya’s turn to purse her lips, thinking. What was her best memory? Definitely not her parents’ deaths. Or anything about her parents because it would remind her of their deaths. She did not remember much of her childhood. Her depression had taken many of her early memories, swallowed them whole and leaving gaps she had long stopped trying to fill.

So she decided to talk about Andy.

“Andy, my best friend since university, is my Gabriella," she started and Carina smiled. “Back in university, we rented the same place, studied different courses but we managed to stick together. I remember Andy coming into my room one day in the early days of my depression, though I didn’t know it yet. She came in with her laptop, sodas, and snacks. She turned off the lights, pushed my books away, and we spent the night trying to watch a movie but ended up just talking.”

Maya chuckled. “Andy talks really fast when she’s excited, and that particular night, she had a lot to say. She talked about one thing, then jumped to another topic before she could even finish the first, and then jumped again. I laughed because she looked ridiculous trying to cram so much in, and she laughed because I laughed, because I hadn’t laughed in a while.

“And she did all that just to see me smile.” Maya gave Carina a small smile. “I’m here because of her support. I was reluctant to take this treatment when so many things worried me, but Andy helped me. She told me to just focus on myself first. I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for her.”

Carina’s smile widened. “I am glad you found your Andy.”

Maya turned to look at the passing clouds. She tried to make sense of the shapes. She gave up after a few minutes. And then it hit her how clouds did not make her think of death anymore. In fact, she realised she had not thought about dying since the start of this treatment.

Maybe there was hope, after all.

Another huge fluffy cloud rolled by. Maya wondered how it would feel to touch one. She could fly up there right now but Carina was here and Maya did not want to leave her alone.

“Hey,” Maya said, eyes on that fluffy cloud. “Could you fly?”

“Can I fly?” Carina asked, her eyebrows up.

“Yes.” Maya was not sure why Carina sounded so incredulous. Surely, she saw Maya fly here to this hill on their first meeting. “If you’re sick of this place, why don’t just fly somewhere? Change your scenery.”

Carina paused, thinking. “I don’t think I can. I don’t even know how. How did you do it?”

Maya shrugged. “I just did. Come.”

Maya srood up, pulling Carina to her feet. A warm breeze came by and left. Maya opened her arms wide, gesturing for Carina to do the same.

“Just open your arms and—”

And Maya was back in Dr. Tan’s treatment room. She groaned, feeling unsettled by something. The doctor noticed, mistaking her groan for discomfort but Maya assured him that she was fine. She was just… missing something. Frustrated, she went to sleep early that night. Andy watched her go without asking, which Maya was grateful for.

The thing was that Maya was actually doing better. She had noticed the changes in her since after the second session. She was eating better, her sleep was good and uninterrupted, she could get through the housework without stopping every few minutes. She graded her mood as four and five, an upgrade from her previous two. Not much, but enough. But the doctor was optimistic by the changes.

The next time, Maya flew across a vast green hill, went up to the low sky to touch the clouds. She did not know how it felt—her mind had nothing to compare it to. She zoomed past a herd of elephants in the open red soil, before making her way to the small hill. Carina was sitting by the cliff edge, her legs dangling dangerously. She looked up when Maya landed behind her, already waiting for Maya.

“There you are,” Carina said. “I thought you weren’t coming back. Especially how you left me hanging with your flying instructions.”

“I’m sorry.” Maya sat next to Carina, dangling her legs over the cliff. “I was excited to teach you and I forgot to tune in to my body.”

“It’s fine. It was fun to see you all hyped up.” Carina leant back on her arms.

Maya looked down at her feet, at the cliff and the crashing waves down there. She frowned. “What happened if you fall down there?”

Carina peered over the cliff and shuddered. “I don’t know. And I’m not trying, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t sit here then.” Maya stood up, pulling Carina’s hand in hers. Carina groaned, having been already comfortable in her seat.

Maya pulled her toward the tree. The sun was high up in the sky, it was warm and nice on her skin. Sitting under the tree shade, they leant against the bark, shoulders touching.

“Tell me something interesting,” Maya said. “Your little obsession, or anything.”

“I have always been intrigued by the concept of time and space,” Carina replied. “How humans are the one to create devices to measure time and yet, we’re the only animals to suffer from it. There are always deadlines to meet, meetings to go, planes to catch.”

Carina pointed at the birds flying above them. “They do not have to hurry. Or worry that they might be late for the worms. The moment we started measuring time was the beginning of our misery.”

“That is…” Maya huffed, “heavy.”

Carina laughed but she did not stop. “And the world is so huge. Are you really saying we’re the only ones here? Don’t pull my leg.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who said it!” Maya half-yelled, jokingly.

Carina pushed Maya’s shoulder lightly, laughing at her comment. “Not you, silly. The scientists. I bet they had evidence or proof of life beyond Earth. And are you sure there is only one Earth? What if there are multiple Earths at the same time? We could be from two different Earths altogether. There are so many things we don’t know.”

Maya did not like the idea of them both coming from different versions of Earth, but seeing Carina getting frustrated by the end of her passionate speech made Maya chuckle and forgot about it. To see Carina was so animated. So… alive. It made Maya wonder how Carina was in real life. Was she as passionate as she was here? Maya would love to know her, the real Carina. It made Maya suddenly sad.

Carina noticed her. Because, of course, Carina always did.

“What’s wrong?” she asked Maya.

Maya sighed. “I just wished that one day I could meet you in real life. But I know it was a hopeless wish. Because we both don’t even know where you are. For all we know, you could be in Italy right now.”

“Hey.” Carina touched her arm. “Hey, don’t lose hope. Maybe we will meet someday. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow or next week. But I believe we will.”

“You think so?” Maya asked. Carina nodded. Maya did not know if Carina said that just to comfort her or if Carina really believed so. Either way, Maya felt at ease. It helped to know she was not the only one who wanted more than this brief interaction. “Do you think we will recognise each other out there?”

“I don’t know. But if whatever we talked here bleed slowly into your subconscious, who can tell what else.”

Maya gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Maybe.”

“Teach me,” Carina said suddenly. “How to fly.”

Maya stood, pulling Carina up. “Just... let go. Feel weightless.”

Carina closed her eyes. She jumped. She fell two feet to the grass and landed hard on her back.

Maya tried not to laugh. “Again.”

They spent the session with Carina throwing herself off the small hill, landing each time. By the fourth attempt, she was laughing so hard she could not breathe. Maya was laughing too, but underneath it was something else: this is what being alive feels like.

Then, suddenly, Carina stopped. She looked at Maya with sad eyes. “I can’t leave this hill, can I?”

Maya’s laughter died. She knew the answer. But before she could say anything, she sensed her body was slowly regaining control. She realised she had to say goodbye for now.

“I’m going to wake up now,” Maya said, keeping her promise not to just disappear anymore. “I’ll see you same time next week.”

Maya woke up in the treatment room, feeling less disoriented than the first session. Good, her body was adjusting well to the drug, the doctor said when she told him that. He asked the usual questions, and Maya answered honestly. She was feeling better with the treatment and she was hopeful for the future.

“Now that we have completed the induction phase of treatment, we are moving to the second phase. The optimisation stage,” the doctor said.

“Okay. What does that mean?”

“We’ll further increase the distance between sessions. Instead of twice weekly, you’ll only have to come back on Mondays. After that, we’ll see how you do and further increase the intervals.”

Maya knew that mean she was almost halfway through the treatment. That she should achieve remission soon and complete the treatment. It meant she could return to some version of herself before all this. She should be happy. But she did not. It made Maya frown.

“Are you not happy with the progress?” Dr. Tan asked.

“No, it’s not that. I’m glad, really. It’s just…” Maya could not complete her sentence. Just… what? She did not know. She shook her head. “Nothing. I’m just sensing I was forgetting something, that’s all.”

She assured the doctor that she was not experiencing any discomfort, pain, or worsening symptoms. He let her go with an appointment after a week. She thanked him.

Andy was happy to know her current update. To celebrate, she had stopped by the store to buy ingredients for fresh pasta. Maya beamed. Her best friend still remembered what Maya had said. But the bookstore next door caught her attention. Andy let her browse while she went in to buy everything they needed for dinner that night.

The tiny bell above the door chimed when Maya pushed it open. A young storekeeper looked up from behind the counter, standing up to greet Maya with a smile.

“Welcome. How can I help?” the girl, whose nametag spelled Sarah, asked. She was young and polite, probably still in college.

“Yes, I’m wondering if you have section for non-fiction.”

“Yes, we do. It’s right by that corner.” Sarah showed her to the bookshelves. “Call me if you need anything else.”

Maya nodded and started browsing. She did not know what she was looking for. She had not buy non-academic books in years. To suddenly feel like reading was slightly disorienting, or strange, even. Her doctor had mentioned that with improving symptoms, she should regain back her hobbies, and reading was never her hobby. Not to mention, her sudden interest in non-fictions.

She stopped in front of rows of books with complicated topics—the science behind time, about the universe, and parallel worlds. Andy, arms full with grocery bags, found her reading the back cover of a book about collective unconscious. She frowned at the book in Maya’s hand.

“Didn’t know you like that genre,” Andy commented. Maya put back the book to its place. She reached to take one bag from Andy.

“I didn’t,” Maya replied. She thanked Sarah before leaving.

They went home, rolling pasta on the island, laughing at their floured faces. Decided on a simple tomato pasta for now, they tasted it nervously. It was delicious. Andy did not believe Maya had convinced her to roll her own pasta but she was glad that Maya had developed a tastebud for authentic Italian food. Because now, Andy could definitely taste the different between homemade and store-bought noodle. She cursed Maya for it. Maya laughed and threw a piece of bread at her.

A week had gone by. She was still not fully returned to work. She did drop by their office a few times, and Andy allowed her to look at one of their current projects for a while. Just something to ease her back soon.

She tried her hand at different Italian recipes, slowly falling in love with the flavour. It still struck her how quickly she had taken to it. Nothing in her routine or surroundings had changed to explain it. But she welcomed it.

And then Monday came. She was lying in the bed, the same routine she had done multiple times before. She closed her eyes, welcoming the sensation.

The first thing she recalled was how much time had passed since the last time she saw Carina. Before, she would be gone for only a few days. Thinking it was the same, she had bid Carina goodbye with the promise of seeing her again soon. But she had left Carina for a week.

Feeling guilty for something out of her knowledge, she immediately found Carina on the hill. Carina had her eyes closed with soft smile on her lips, leaning against the tree. Maya took her time walking over.

She looked peaceful. Now closer, Maya could hear she was humming to that same song. The one Carina did not know the full lyrics or the title. The wind pushed her hair in her face. Carina pushed it back, opening her eyes.

Maya waved her a greeting.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

Maya sat next to her, apologies already on her tongue. Carina saw it coming.

“Don’t start,” Carina warned.

Maya nodded. It was true, she did not know she would be gone longer. But she knew it now, so she made sure Carina to know too. To know what to expect.

“Okay. Though I don’t exactly know how time works here,” Carina said.

“But you do know how many days had passed, right?”

“No, not really.” She looked up to the sky. Maya followed. “The sun is always there.”

“It’s always daytime?”

Carina nodded. “Everything is unchanged here.”

Maya’s heart felt heavy. She looked around, trying to picture herself being stuck here forever. She would go stir crazy.

Carina resumed, “The sun is always shining, never too warm, never too cold. Just perfect.”

“How do you cope?”

Carina looked at her. Smiling, she said, “You, coming and going. You, telling me stories I don’t know about, things I never heard. That kept me going. The hope that you’ll come back.”

Maya squeezed Carina’s hand. “I’ll promise to keep coming back.”

Carina asked her about the current social issues. About what was happening in the world. Maya did not read the news much, everything she knew was all sourced from Andy at the dinner table. She relayed what she remembered. The latest gossip in the entertainment world. Who was dating who. Carina made a face, not really familiar with American celebrities, so Maya skipped it.

She told Carina about the wars and the humanitarian efforts. She explained how the world was divided but nothing really changed much. But the voices against it were getting louder, gaining tractions.

Maya bid her bye before she left, reminding Carina that it would be another week until she would see Maya again. Carina nodded and waved.

On the way home that day, Maya asked Andy to stop by the bookstore. She picked up some magazines and newspapers, reading it in the living room after dinner. Andy quirked her eyebrows but Maya just shrugged, resuming her reading.

Next week, when Maya came to the hill, something was already wrong. She knew it before she could name it. The hill was the same. The tree, the grass, the cliff edge, the ocean below. The sky its usual perfect blue. Everything in its place.

But it felt wrong the way a room felt wrong when you walked in and realised someone had moved something, and you could not tell what.

Maya stood at the edge of the field and looked around. No white dress. No figure against the tree. She waited a moment, thinking maybe Carina was somewhere in the longer grass, or had wandered further down the slope. She had never done that before, but there was a first time.

“Carina?”

Her voice carried and came back to her. The ocean answered with its usual indifference. The grass moved. The birds did not stop.

She checked behind the tree first. Then walked the length of the hill slowly, scanning the grass. She went further than she normally would, further than she knew Carina usually went, down toward where the slope flattened out before dropping again. Nothing.

She went back up and stood at the cliff edge, looking down at the crashing waves the way Carina always refused to. As if she might find her there.

She did not.

Maya sat down. Right where they always sat, the spot worn into habit now, the place that had come to mean something without either of them deciding it would. She pulled her knees to her chest—Carina’s posture, she realised distantly—and looked out at the water. The ocean was the same. It had always been the same. Rough and loud and indifferent to whoever sat above it.

She waited. Thinking maybe Carina was just late. Thinking maybe time worked differently today. Thinking maybe she would hear the humming first, the way she sometimes did, carrying on the wind before Carina herself appeared. She listened for it.

There was no humming.

The wind moved through the grass. A seagull crossed the sky and disappeared. The waves came, broke, and went and came again and did not stop for any of it.

Maya sat there, not searching anymore. Just sitting with the absence of it, which was its own kind of weight. The hill without Carina on it was a different place entirely. Smaller, somehow. Less. She had not understood until now how much of this space Carina had filled simply by being in it. Her voice. Her laugh. The way she tilted her head when she was thinking. The humming Maya had never been able to place.

Maya woke up in the treatment room, feeling lost but she did not know exactly why. She went about the rest of the day. She made dinner and laughed at something Andy said. But something was nagging at the back of her mind, though she could not put her finger on what.

In a hospital somewhere, a team of doctors and nurses surrounded a bed in a private hospital room. They were working hard, trying to get the pulseless woman's heart to beat again. It was chaos and fast. A man, the woman's younger brother, sat on the floor outside the room crying and praying for a miracle. A small music player was playing Avrai on loop in the background.