January 22nd

I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I wish I could back turn the hands of time. I wish I could stop what happened.

I'm so lonely..............

***

Relly woke in pieces.

Her mind surfaced first, floating hazy and unanchored, like driftwood in black water. Her body came next, one slow, aching limb at a time. She didn't remember falling asleep, and she certainly didn't remember getting into bed. The air around her was stale. Cold. Too quiet. It felt like the kind of silence that listens back.

The ceiling above her seemed foreign, too quiet, too white, like it had been replaced with a copy. Her head throbbed, not a sharp pain, but a deep, hollow thudding that rang with a sinister silence, like someone had scooped out parts of her memory and left the shell behind.

She sat up. Her hands trembled.

The sheets smelled faintly of cologne and antiseptic, and her skin felt damp under her shirt, though the room was cold. She blinked once. Then again. Then once more.

Jordan was gone.

Not just out of the room, but gone from the apartment. His keys were no longer on the hook. His watch, always left on the side table when he was home, had vanished. The empty silence wrapped around her like a noose, tightening with every passing second.

She touched her throat and realized her nails had dug deep into the skin overnight. There were crescent-shaped marks—small, raw valleys of pain she couldn't remember inflicting. She pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to remember what had happened the night before. A dinner. A question. A name.

Sara.

Everything after that fractured like glass under heat like shattered memories splintering into sharp edges she couldn't fit back together.

Her reflection stared at her from across the room, standing inside the full-length mirror like it hadn't moved all night. Her body twitched, but the mirrored version didn't. It stared dead ahead, lips parted too wide, the mouth curled into an expression that didn't belong to her. It wasn't smiling. It was preparing to.

Relly turned away before it could change again.

The room tilted slightly when she stood. Her legs ached, knees shaky, as if she'd been running all night in her dreams. She noticed the faintest splash of red under her fingernails, half-dried. Not hers. Not entirely human either.

She didn't dare ask what happened.

Not to Jordan. Not to herself.

She dressed quietly, methodically, like she was folding herself into pieces. Her clothes didn't feel like hers anymore. The jeans were too tight, too shaped to a body she no longer remembered belonging to. The sweater itched like something was crawling beneath it, rubbing its rough body against her ribs.

By the time she stepped out, the sun had already begun its descent, casting long, skeletal shadows across the pavement. Every step toward the animal shelter felt like a stretch of eternity, each footfall sinking into the sidewalk like it was made of tar.

The structure loomed at the edge of a thinning neighborhood, paint peeling like flayed skin, the sign above the chain-link gate faded into a tired whisper "Second Chances Animal Refuge." It had always looked like a place both alive and dying.

The entrance to the shelter creaked, same as always.

The air smelled too clean, like bleach and mourning. The familiar clang of metal cages and the rhythmic yapping of sheepdogs, familiar, but offbeat, like a song remembered wrong. Even the sky overhead fractured into pale glass in her mind, clouds moving backward.

The front yard was scattered with lots of goats and fat spotted lambs, their hooves crunching against sun-dried straw. A Holstein cow swatted flies with its tail in the corner, and four sheepdogs darted back and forth in the field like arrows loosed from string.

Then there were the huskies. Five of them. Glacial blue eyes. Thick white-gray coats. Wolfish. Their eyes weren't just blue, they were too blue. It was like cracked porcelain or something dead trying to pretend to be human.

Stephen stood by the gates, wiping his hands on a faded towel, surprise flickering across his face when he saw her. His age sat heavy on him today and his long white hair was pulled into a ponytail at the base of his neck. A battered rosary swung gently from his wrist. The kind that'd seen war and prayer.

"Relly," he said, voice warm but cautious. "It's been a while. Thought you got too busy for us."

She smiled tightly. "Sorry. I've been caught up."

He nodded, then tilted his head. "Still, your donations have kept us going.  Gracias, mija. You keep us breathing. You're a saint for that."

She flinched at the word. Saint. Like a crown of thorns placed too soon.

She nodded, too tight. Her smile was a flickering lightbulb. "How can I help?"

He glanced toward the pens. "Lambs need feedin'. Dogs too. Just the usual stuff."

The shelter looked like it always had. Goats clattered around in their pen. A few lambs nested lazily under heat lamps. A fat black-and-white cow blinked at her from a corner. But it was the dogs, specifically the huskies with the too-blue eyes, that made her stop.

They knew her and yet, they barked like strangers.

Frantic. Aggressive. Their eyes wide, ears pinned back, foam gathering at the corners of their mouths. They pressed themselves against the chain-link fence as if trying to claw their way out, not away from the shelter, but away from her.

Stephen didn't seem to notice. He handed her a plastic scoop of dog feed and pointed toward the pen. "Sorry about them. They've been a little jumpy today."

Relly's legs moved before her brain caught up. Her feet crunched over gravel, but it wasn't gravel anymore, it was glass. Broken mirror shards, digging into her soles. She kept walking.

The barking started as a low growl then bloomed into something feral. It wasn't barking. It was screaming.

Unnatural. Unhinged. The sound clawed up her ears and scraped behind her eyes. Each bark echoed like bones snapping, veins unraveling, children crying underwater. Her stomach dropped. The air soured.

These were the dogs who loved her. Who had once pressed their heads into her palm like she was home. Now they pressed against the fence like she was the plague.

They lunged at the gate, frothing. Their blue eyes locked with hers and that was when she knew. They saw it. Not her. It. The other her.

That thing that pressed against the edges of her skin. That curled under her shoulder blades like a second spine. That hissed in her bloodstream.

Her breath turned to razors. She raised a trembling hand to the smallest husky—Lobo—and gently touched his snout.

Her ears rang with it, until the sound became white noise like static screaming inside her skull. Her vision doubled, then split. The sky pulsed above her in red and gray stripes, and the ground opened up just a little. Just enough for invisible hands to reach up and scrape at her calves where it was pulling, dragging and aching to consume her.

Her breath quickened. Her throat burned. Her heart stuttered like it was trying to escape her chest.

"Calm down," she whispered, unsure if she was speaking to the dogs or herself.

The change was instant. The barking ceased. All five huskies went silent. Ears up. Eyes watching.

Her heartbeat returned. Temporarily. A momentary truce.

Her lungs began to work again. She crouched, scooped some of the feed into the bowls, and kept moving, not trusting the stillness. Her body trembled, even as she tried to keep her hands steady. Each motion was haunted by the question. What did I do last night?

Somewhere behind her ribcage, she could feel the other her shifting. Stirring like a wild animal coiled in a nest of bone and blood. Pacing. Unsettled. Hungry.

She turned toward the stalls and began feeding the lambs. The goats danced around her feet. A bird screamed somewhere overhead. A dull metal clang. Then quiet again.

In the distance, Melissa, the teen volunteer, appeared. She gave a curt nod and disappeared into the shadows.

Normal. Except none of it was.

A voice called to her, it was Stephen, still not noticing anything beyond the norm.

"Hey, before you leave, mind coming to the back for a second?"

She followed, legs stiff. The hallway stretched far longer than she remembered. Too many doors. Too many shadows leaning in.

In the office, Stephen sat heavily behind his desk. A crooked space lined with dusty shelves and soft country music playing from a broken speaker. The window filtered gold light over a small stack of bills, papers, and a cracked photo of a beach. A dusty file sat between them like a coffin.

"I'm not asking for anything," he said, eyes soft, "but I wanted you to know that we're barely holding on. I've tried everything, but I think this place might close in a few months."

His voice cracked. "You've kept us afloat longer than anyone else. But the bills keep piling. And I'm not young anymore."

Relly tried to smile, but her face was frozen in porcelain.

"Wanted to say gracias again. Dios sabe I hate begging. But things are tight. Tighter than tight. I've been thinkin' of closing, maybe takin' a break. Go home to Puerto Rico. Just for un mes. See my cousins. My nietos. Sit by the water and remember what it feels like to rest."

She nodded, polite. Too polite. Something inside her was unraveling. And the words he said, normal words, mundane concerns, felt like bombs dropped into her chest. Each syllable detonated guilt and dread.

What happens when this place closes?

Where will the animals go?

What if they're put down?

What if they—

The thought spiraled. Became teeth. Became claws. Became something hot and red and crawling beneath her fingernails again.

His words became warped echoes, each syllable bouncing against her chest like gunshots. Closing. Animals. Nowhere to go.

Her teeth ground together.

A voice inside her whispered. You can't even save the animals. How the hell can you save yourself?

She blinked, and blood ran down the walls. The sunlight flickered red, and the rosary on Stephen's wrist slithered like it was made of worms.

He didn't notice.

She looked up.

The mirror behind Stephen showed her, but not. It was her body, her clothes and her face, but the expression was wrong. The smile was cracked in half. The eyes were wide and twitching. The shoulders twitching too. Lips torn at the corners like wet paper. Blood dripped slowly from the eyes. Skin peeled at the jawline in strips like melted wax. Hands twitching with inhuman spasms. The same sweater. The same jeans. But wrong. So very, very wrong.

It didn't smile. It just stared.

Manic. Rabid. Unhinged.

Something primal snapped in her gut. She staggered back from the desk, hit the chair with her knees, and tried to laugh it off. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's just been a lot."

Stephen looked concerned, but didn't press.

"Take your time," he said. "And thanks again."

*****

Author's Note

Hello, hello, hello.
How has today been going so far.
I'd love to know.
Xoxo
Jasmine Stars