The alarm clock was silent. It had been for days.
Emily lay on her back, staring into the darkness until the muted green of the analog clock slowly sharpened. 6:17. No gentle fading, no voice comparing her pulse to last week, no “Good morning, Emily. You didn’t sleep well.” Just the hum of the air purifier in the wall and the neon strip from outside, pushing through the crack in the blinds.
The hole in her morning was shaped like a user interface.
She had dreamt something about water, glass, a room without doors. As soon as she reached for the image, it slipped away like a file without a path. Only the weight remained in her chest, an echo that couldn’t decide whether it was fear or a hangover.
“Good morning,” she murmured into the room.
In the past, KLEIO would have answered. A friendly voice, too warm to be real. Today, the only response from her was a tired crackle from the heating system.
She forced herself to her feet. Feet on cold laminate, shoulders rolling, the familiar tension in her neck, where the incision line of the implant lay beneath the skin like a fine plastic wire. Before, the welcome overlay would have popped up around her right now. Today: nothing. Just this strange awareness of the silence in her mind.
The old cell phone lay on the nightstand. Flat, dull plastic that smelled of another era. She reached for it, wiping the matte screen on her shirt. Three provider text messages. A missed call from last night. No name “Fiona.”
The missing icon hurt more than the missed message.
She placed the phone on her stomach, stared at the ceiling, and counted the fine cracks in the plaster. KLEIO would have advised her at this point to get up, make some tea, do a few breathing exercises. “Waking up made easy.” She had hated those recommendations. Now she realized how deeply they had ingrained them in her routine.
“You wanted it this way,” she said to herself. The voice didn’t sound convinced.
The bathroom light was too bright. The mirror reflected a woman in her early thirties with shadows under her eyes that felt like poorly concealed flaws. The scar on her neck, a clean, pale line, looked in the neon light like a comment someone had written on her body.
