My face felt numb as my eyelids slowly heaved their way open, my limbs like boulders as I desperately begged them to move. I whispered to the room, soft as a sigh, "Hello, is anyone there?" hoping someone would hear me or at least I might glimpse a spark of motion from the shadows. A faint map of streetlights blinked through the blinds, guiding my thoughts to familiar places I hadn’t visited in what felt like years. Then a slow, stubborn breath crawled back into me, and with it came a stubborn memory that maybe I wasn’t alone after all. It began as a whisper, almost like self-reassurance: 'There's no one here with me; it's just my imagination. Maybe I shouldn't have eaten that week-old brie that was liquifying at the back of the fridge after all.' The whisper is suddenly starting to grow, a warning, a manic wail screaming from the inside out; this isn't a hallucination; there's someone in here with you! The voice in my head speaks so fast against the constant beating of the rain that lashes against my windowpane; if only it could be quiet for five seconds, maybe I could hear myself think. The rain thudded louder, but the voice pressed closer, curling around my nerves like a cold roommate I didn’t invite – one that I never had to begin with. I steadied my breath, counting the ticks of the clock, trying to pretend the room was larger than it felt and that the whisper was just a bad joke from a tired brain. Then, a soft knock sounded from the corridor, deliberate and patient, Mehr sehen