Hypnagogia

I

The whistle of the kettle dragged Karla out of sleep like a hand yanking her upward. She jerked halfway off the mattress, one arm braced behind her, staring at the bedroom door.

For a moment she didn’t move. She wasn’t even sure she was awake.

The kettle kept going, shrill and insistent, until it cut off mid‑note. Silence followed—brief, thin—then the soft clatter of something in the kitchen. Metal against ceramic. A drawer sliding open. Someone moving things.

Her stomach dropped.

She swung her legs out of bed, grabbed her robe, and wrapped it around herself with shaking fingers. She stepped toward the door, pausing just before the threshold. She leaned out, just enough to see down the hallway.

The rummaging stopped.

A faucet turned on.

Ran for a second.

Turned off.

“Hello?” Her voice cracked on the last syllable.

A beat. Then a dull thud, like a cup set down too hard on the counter.

Her pulse hammered in her ears as she walked down the hallway, each step careful, deliberate. “Hello,” she called again, softer this time, as if volume might provoke something.

She reached the kitchen.

The stovetop glowed faintly, the red coils fading as they cooled. No cup. No kettle. No sign of anything disturbed. The air smelled faintly of steam, but that could have been her imagination.

She checked the living room. The spare bedroom. The bathroom.

When she returned to the kitchen, she stood still for a long moment, listening to the quiet press in around her. Her heartbeat felt too loud, like it didn’t belong to her body.

Then— A door slammed.

She flinched hard, spinning toward the hallway. The sound had come from her bedroom. She was sure of it. But the bedroom door was still open, light from the window spilling calmly into the hall.

Her breath stuttered.

A sound drifted out. Barely there. A soft, uneven sobbing.

A woman.

Karla swallowed, forcing her feet to move. She walked toward the bedroom, each step slower than the last. The sobbing thinned as she approached, fading like someone turning down a radio.

By the time she reached the doorway, it had stopped completely.

The room waited in perfect stillness.

Exactly as she'd left it.

She stood there, one hand gripping the doorframe, the other pressed to her chest, unable to speak, unable to understand why the air felt so heavy—why it felt like she had just missed someone by seconds.

II

The rest of the morning passed in a fog. Karla moved through her routine with the brittle focus of someone trying not to think too hard. She showered, dressed, made toast she barely tasted. She kept glancing toward the hallway as if expecting a sound to follow her out the door.

Nothing did.

Work was mercifully dull. Emails, small talk, the hum of fluorescent lights. She told no one about the morning. She didn’t even let herself replay it. Every time her mind drifted toward the memory of the kettle or the sobbing, she shut it down like closing a window against a draft.

By the time she drove home, the sky was already dimming. The house looked normal from the outside — quiet, still, unremarkable. She unlocked the door, stepped inside, and felt the familiar weight of the place settle around her.

Her phone rang.

Michael.

She answered, already bracing herself.

He sounded tired. She sounded tense. The argument wasn’t dramatic — just the slow, grinding kind that comes from distance and repetition. He’d been gone too long. He didn’t know when he’d be back. She didn’t know how much longer she could pretend that was fine.

They talked in circles until neither of them had anything left to say. When she hung up, her chest felt tight, like she’d been holding her breath for hours.

She went to bed early.

Sleep didn’t come easily. She lay on her side, staring at the faint glow of the streetlight through the curtains, listening to the house settle. Every creak made her flinch. Every shift of the air felt like a presence.

Sometime before midnight, she heard the shower.

A steady rush of water behind the bathroom door.

She sat up slowly, heart thudding. The sound was unmistakable — the pressure, the rhythm, the way it echoed off tile. She waited for the shadow of feet beneath the door.

There was none.

She stood, walked to the bathroom, and pushed the door open.

Dry floor. Cold air. Silence.

She backed away, pulse racing, and returned to bed. She pulled the covers up to her chin and tried to breathe evenly.

A few minutes later, the faint murmur of a television drifted from the living room — the low, indistinct chatter of a show she couldn’t quite place. She stared at the bedroom doorway, waiting for the flicker of light on the wall.

It never came.

She got up again, walked down the hall, and found the living room dark. The TV was off. The remote untouched.

She stood there for a long moment, arms wrapped around herself, listening to the quiet press in from all sides.

Eventually she went back to bed. She lay awake until exhaustion finally pulled her under.

III

Karla woke before sunrise, the room still dim and colorless. Her body felt heavy, her mind fogged from a night of broken sleep. She moved through the house quietly, as if afraid to disturb something she couldn’t name.

In the kitchen, she filled the kettle and set it on the stove. The burner clicked on. She folded her arms and waited.

When the whistle began, sharp and rising, she winced. It was the same sound that had yanked her awake yesterday.

She turned it off quickly, almost too quickly, and poured the water. When she set the cup down, it hit the counter harder than she meant — a dull, hollow thud that made her flinch.

She rinsed the spoon under the faucet. The water hissed. Stopped.

She carried the tea toward her bedroom, but as she reached the doorway, her grip slipped slightly. She pushed the door open with her shoulder — and it swung wider than she expected, slamming against the wall with a sharp crack.

She sat on the edge of the bed, took a sip of tea, and felt the warmth rise behind her eyes. She set the cup down and pressed her palms to her face.

The sobs came quietly at first, then in small, uneven bursts.

She wiped her face, embarrassed by the intensity of it, and stood abruptly. She walked out to the living room, where her keys lay on the entry table. She picked them up — the familiar jingle of metal against wood — and closed her hand around them.

Karla opened the front door and stepped outside. The air was cool, the street empty. She pulled the door shut behind her.

She started jogging, letting the movement steady her breathing. The neighborhood was waking slowly — a porch light turning off, a dog barking somewhere far away.

She made it halfway down the street before she stopped.

Not because she was tired. Because the memory hit her all at once.

The kettle. The thud. The faucet. The sobbing. The door slam. The keys.

Every sound she had heard yesterday morning… she had just made.

She turned back toward the house.

From here, the front door looked still, closed, harmless. But she could see it in her mind — herself on the other side of it yesterday, ear pressed to the wood, listening with held breath.

Listening for this. For her.

A strange, hollow feeling opened in her chest, as if she had stepped out of herself and left another version behind.

She walked slowly back up the street, eyes fixed on the door until she reached it. Then stopped.

Karla stood there, staring at the door, wondering — impossibly — if she was still on the other side.

The morning felt thin around her. Like she could push through it and find herself.

IV

Karla stepped back into the apartment slowly, closing the front door behind her with a soft, deliberate click. She didn’t move at first. She just stood there, hand still on the knob, listening to the quiet settle around her.

Her eyes drifted to the door itself.

To the exact spot where she had stood yesterday morning—standing at the kitchen entrance, breath held, listening for sounds she couldn’t explain.

There was nothing.

She stepped back, studying the door as if something might appear there if she looked long enough. But the entryway remained ordinary, painfully ordinary, as if the house were trying too hard to pretend nothing had happened.

She walked deeper inside, but she kept glancing back at the kitchen door, as though she might catch herself standing there again if she turned quickly enough.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. She made dinner but barely tasted it. She tried to read but couldn’t focus. Every sound in the apartment felt slightly off, slightly delayed, as if the house were breathing a fraction of a second out of sync with her.

By nightfall, she felt wrung out.

She decided to shower, hoping the heat and steam might settle her nerves. She closed the bathroom door firmly and turned on the water. The room filled with steam, fogging the mirror, softening the edges of everything. For a few minutes, the sound of the water was enough to drown out her thoughts.

When she stepped out, towel wrapped around her, she froze.

The bathroom door was open.

Wide open.

She stared at it, water dripping from her hair onto the tile. She remembered closing it. She remembered the weight of it in her hand, the click of the latch. She stood there for a long moment, heart thudding, then forced herself to move.

She dressed quickly, left the bathroom light on, and walked into the living room.

She turned on the TV. The glow filled the room, warm and familiar. She sank onto the sofa, pulling a blanket over herself.

The noise helped. The light helped. Eventually, her eyes grew heavy.

She drifted.

One minute passed. Two minutes

The TV clicked off.

She stirred, half-asleep, assuming the sleep timer had kicked in. The room was dark now, the only light the faint spill from the streetlamp outside. She shifted slightly, adjusting the blanket.

Behind her, someone stood.

A presence. Still. Close.

Karla didn’t turn—not yet—but she felt it. The weight of another body in the room. The quiet, steady breath that wasn’t hers.

And then, in the reflection of the darkened TV screen, she saw it:

A woman. Standing behind the sofa. Holding the remote.

Her own face. Her own posture. Her own eyes staring down at her.

Karla.