Oobe -

Don’t look back .

I’m the one who did.

I fell through every layer, screaming without a throat, and slammed back into myself so hard I bit my tongue. Blood on the pillow. My mother never stopped knitting. The fever broke an hour later. Don’t look back

That’s the part no one tells you: the silence. Down in the body, there’s always a hum—blood, digestion, the grind of molars. Up here, pure acoustic zero. I could have shouted her name until the walls bled sound. Nothing. I was a ghost in the only house I’d ever known. Blood on the pillow

The first time it happened, I was seven years old, flat on my back with a fever of 104. The ceiling’s water stain—a leering map of South America—began to wobble. Then it dropped. That’s the part no one tells you: the silence

There is a version of me still rising. Still passing the bride, the firefighter, the man with the tie. Still heading for the dark between stars.