Therapy Bits

At precisely 2:47 a.m., the anomaly arrived.

It wasn’t a flash of light or a shudder in the earth, but a silence. A thick, impossible silence that swallowed the ticking of Nora’s clock, the hum of her fridge, even the wind.

She stood in her kitchen, one hand hovering over the kettle, the other clutched around a chipped mug. Her breath frosted in the air, though the heater was on. The lights flickered, then dimmed—not off, just dimmed, as if reality had thinned.

Through her window, the stars blinked out one by one, replaced by something darker than night. A shape. No, a presence. Watching.

She should have moved. Screamed. Prayed. But her body, like the world, paused.

Then it spoke.

Not with words, but with memory. Her mother’s laugh. The scent of honeysuckle. Her brother’s funeral. A pain so sharp she almost dropped the mug.

"Why me?" she whispered.

A ripple of warmth brushed her cheek. An answer, maybe. Or a goodbye.

At 2:48 a.m., the silence lifted. The stars returned. Time resumed.

Nora’s tea boiled over, hissing against metal.

She blinked.

And the anomaly was gone.

But it had left something behind.

RDP Tuesday! Anomaly!