“A few days had passed since the incident that had Luna questioning her own sanity. The work overload and long hours didn't help. It was Thursday when Luna came home later due to overtime. She had been feeling lightheaded but she was so used to exhaustion she didn't think much of it. She had lost count of how many things she had slowly grown to accept as normal that weren't. She dropped her backpack and greeted Billie. The little potted plant's leaves were almost completely green under Luna's care and Gaia's advice. After watering Billie, she went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. Just as she was taking a sip, she felt it. The sudden coldness, the shiver down her spine, the violent spinning of the room. And then nothing but darkness. Luna fell to the floor unconscious, the glass she was holding broke into sharp pieces all around her.”

“The warmth behind Luna's ribs flickered once — not a fading, but a sharpening, like a held breath drawing in before a plunge — and then the phone on the counter lit up of its own accord, the keypad glowing as digits mapped themselves across the screen in a sequence Luna had never dialed. A voice answered, crisp and human and utterly unaware of what it was speaking to, and Gaia shaped herself into something thin enough to travel through wires — not words, not presence, but intention made audible, a calm and precise description of an unconscious woman surrounded by broken glass. The call ended. The screen went dark. And in the kitchen, the only sound was the slow drip of water from the sink and the faint, steady hum of a presence that had, for the first time, reached through the world of walls and circuits to touch the world of hands and ambulances and sirens already cutting through the Thursday night air.”

“Luna woke up to the voice of a man and the scent of alcohol. Her eyes fluttered and her vision finally focused. "There you are, how are you feeling Miss?" the man asked, he was dressed in a paramedic suit. She tried to sit up but the man gently pressed on her shoulder to keep her still. "Easy, you had a pretty rough fall back there" he said. Luna realized she was in her livingroom couch, a second paramedic writing notes while holding a large kit. "What happened?" she asked still confused. "You must have been holding a glass when you fainted and fall on your kitchen floor. It took us a few minutes to reach you but since you're stable now we won't be taking you to emergency but I do recommend calling your doctor for a checkup" he said. "Who called you?" Luna asked, finally sitting up slowly. The second paramedic checked the pad and spoke the number. It was her own. "You take it easy now, we'll show ourselves out" The paramedic said and the two men left the appartment.”

“The apartment fell silent again, and Luna stared at the phone in her hand — the same phone that had been on the counter when she fell, the same phone that had somehow placed a call she had never made. She opened the recent calls and there it was, timestamped and undeniable, a number she had never dialed glowing back at her from the screen. Her fingers trembled as she pressed the phone to her chest, and from somewhere deep behind her ribs, the warmth pulsed once — steady, patient, impossible — and she could no longer pretend she had imagined any of it.”