The bar emptied in stages, not all at once.
First the loud ones went — chairs dragged back with unnecessary force, laughter pitched too high to mean anything. Someone knocked over a stool and didn’t bother to right it. The door opened and closed in bursts, letting in cold air and the smell of wet tarmac before sealing it out again.
By the time the last couple left, the room felt looser somehow, like it had lost its shape.
Fairy lights buzzed overhead, uneven and tired. Half of them were dead; the rest blinked in no particular rhythm. The television muttered to itself in the corner, still muted, faces sliding past under studio lighting. The bar smelled of stale lager, bleach, and something fried hours ago and never forgiven.
“Lock up when you’re done,” Mick said, already shrugging into his coat.
He didn’t look at her. That, more than anything, told her how bad she looked.
“Yeah,” Alice said. Her voice sounded normal. She hated that.
The door shut. The lock turned. The building settled around her with a low, complaining creak — pipes, beams, the old fridge behind the bar kicking back in like a reluctant heartbeat.
Quiet didn’t arrive. It hovered.
Alice stood behind the bar, hands resting flat on the wood. The surface was tacky under her palms. Old spills. Layers of time. She focused on that instead of the way her chest felt too tight for the room.
She reached for a glass.
It slipped — not dramatically, just enough.
The crack when it hit the floor was sharp and immediate. Too close. Too loud.
Her body reacted before her thoughts did. She flinched hard, heart punching up into her throat, breath tearing out of her all at once. For a split second, the bar fell away—
White.
Noise.
Weight leaving her hands.
She sucked in a breath that scraped on the way down.
“Christ,” she muttered, bending automatically. The word shook.
She crouched to clean it up, movements careful, precise. The floor tiles were colder than she expected. A shard caught the light near her knee, thin as a fingernail.
She reached for it.
The glass bit into her finger — shallow, clean. Blood welled quickly, bright against her skin. She stared at it longer than necessary, pulse loud in her ears.
The sting grounded her.
Good.
She wrapped it in a towel and kept going, sweeping fragments into the dustpan. Glass scraped against tile. The sound crawled up her spine. She didn’t stop until it was done.
Behind her, the television flickered.
Still on.
Still muted.
Lexi’s face was frozen mid-expression — mouth open, eyes red, mascara clinging like it had lost the will to fall. A banner crawled beneath her parents’ faces. JUSTICE FAILED US. The words moved even though no sound came with them.
Alice stood and turned the screen off harder than she needed to.
The bar dropped into yellow dimness. The fairy lights buzzed, offended.
She leaned against the counter, breath shallow now. Her chest burned, like she’d run without meaning to. She pressed the heel of her hand to her sternum and counted, the way she’d once taught someone else.
In.
Out.
In—
Her breath hitched.
Not working.
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Tomorrow pressed in on her — not as a thought, but a sensation. Heavy. Close. The way weather changes before you know what kind it’s going to be.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She froze.
For a heartbeat, she was certain it would be his name. Or hers. Or something worse — something official.
She pulled it out anyway.
Nothing.
No messages. No missed calls. The blank screen felt louder than the television had been. She typed still at work and deleted it. Typed late and stared at the word until it felt meaningless. Typed sorry and closed her eyes.
She locked the phone and shoved it away.
The bar smelled too clean now. Bleach and emptiness. There was nowhere left to hide her thoughts. They pressed in, insistent, tangled with something else — something she didn’t recognise at first.
A voice.
Low. Calm. Too gentle.
Be kind when she’s back.
Her stomach dropped.
She straightened slowly, scanning the room like the woman might still be there — perched on a stool, fingers wrapped around her glass, eyes knowing too much.
Of course she wasn’t.
She’ll be confused, the voice added, clearer now. Not memory exactly. Something worse. She’ll need someone gentle.
Alice laughed once, sharp and humourless.
“That’s not funny,” she said aloud to no one.
Her hands were shaking again.
She grabbed her jacket, fingers brushing the cigarette tucked behind her ear. For a moment — just a moment — she imagined lighting it right there, watching the smoke coil up into the fairy lights, setting the alarm off, forcing someone to come running.
She didn’t know why she wanted that.
She didn’t do it.
Outside, the night hit her like a slap — cold, damp, lamplight blurring the pavement. Somewhere down the street, a car passed too fast, tyres hissing on wet asphalt. The sound snagged in her chest, sharp and involuntary.
She stood there longer than she meant to, jacket zipped wrong, blood seeping through the towel in her pocket.
When she’s back.
Alice shook her head hard, like she could dislodge the thought.
“There is no back,” she muttered.
The streetlight above her flickered once, then steadied.
She started walking.
Halfway down the road, the unease returned — sudden, irrational, absolute — the certainty that if she turned around, something would be standing where the bar door had been.
Waiting.
She didn’t look back.
Tomorrow was coming whether she moved or not.
And for the first time that night, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be ready for it.
——
Her boots scuffed against the pavement, the sound half a beat behind her steps, like the street was slow to keep up. The night had settled damp and close, the air smelling of rain caught in brick and moss. Terraced houses leaned in on either side, their windows lit unevenly—some blue with television glow, some dark, some flicking on as she passed.
The bar was already a block behind her.
She told herself to keep walking.
The streetlight ahead of her flickered.
Not out. Just a hitch. A brief dimming, like a skipped breath.
Alice slowed despite herself. Her shoulders tightened, instinct sharp and unreasonable. She waited for annoyance to arrive—for the rational explanation to muscle its way in. Old wiring. Weather. Nothing.
The light steadied.
She exhaled, annoyed at herself, and stepped forward.
Three paces.
The hum started again.
Not loud. Not external. A thin, high vibration that seemed to press against the inside of her ears rather than enter them. The pavement beneath her boots felt subtly wrong—not soft, not unstable, just... resistant. Like walking through water that pretended to be air.
“Get a grip,” she muttered, but the words sounded flatter than she meant them to.
Somewhere close by, a dog whined.
The fairy lights still buzzed in her ears, even blocks away.
Low. Distressed. Not barking.
The sound cut off abruptly, as if someone had closed a door on it.
Alice stopped fully now.
Her pulse thudded hard enough to feel in her throat.
The street hadn’t changed. Same parked cars slick with rain. Same hedge along the corner house, dripping steadily onto the pavement. Same faint smell of takeaway grease cooling in the night.
Too normal.
That was the problem.
The pressure arrived all at once—not a shove, not a touch, but a sudden awareness of less space. Like the night had leaned in. Her ears rang faintly, enough to blur the edges of sound. Her skin prickled, heat flushing her arms despite the cold.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She jolted, heart slamming, fingers clumsy as she dragged it out.
The screen stayed black.
“No,” she whispered, tapping it. Harder. Again. Nothing. The phone was dead weight in her hand, useless and wrong.
Her breath shortened.
And then—
The smell hit her.
Clean laundry.
Vanilla-sweet. Artificial. Familiar in a way that made her stomach drop through her feet....passing her left shoulder.
“No,” she said again, louder this time, shaking her head like she could dislodge it. “No.”
Her chest tightened painfully. The pressure peaked—not crushing, not violent—but intent. A certainty without language. Something passing close enough that the air shifted, cold and electric, brushing her shoulder without touching skin.
Her knees buckled a fraction. She staggered back, breath tearing out of her chest.
For a heartbeat, memory surged up uninvited:
Skye’s jumper warm from the dryer.
The way she complained about the smell being “too fake.”
The way Alice had laughed and told her to deal with it.
Be kind... when she’s—
The woman’s words surfaced again without warning, clear and unwelcome.
Alice’s throat closed.
“No,” she said, sharper now, as if saying it enough times could make it true. “That’s not—”
The pressure slipped away.
Not gone.
Just... moved.
The streetlight blinked once more—and then steadied completely.
Sound rushed back in all at once: a television laugh down the road, a car door slamming, the distant hiss of tyres on wet asphalt. Ordinary noise crashed over her, clumsy and late.
Her phone lit up in her hand.
One notification.
Missed call
Unknown Number
Her vision narrowed until the screen was all there was.
No time listed.
No voicemail.
Her pulse roared in her ears. She stood frozen beneath the streetlight, staring at the screen while cold crawled up her spine, settling somewhere old and familiar.
The light above her buzzed steadily now, daring her to doubt what she’d felt.
She didn’t turn around.
Didn’t check behind her.
Didn’t know whether she was more afraid of seeing something—
—or of accepting what she already knew, deep in her bones, before her mind could catch up.
Somewhere, impossibly close and impossibly far away,
Something was no longer where it was supposed to be.
Alice swallowed hard and forced her legs to move.
Behind her, the street stayed quiet.
Watching.
