Antidepressant Count

The three-millimeter mustard stain was gone. In its place was a clinical, starched whiteness that made my eyes ache. I stood in my kitchen, clutching the Japanese carbon-steel shears, watching the morning sun cut through the PNW mist. Everything was in its place. The expensive rain-scented candles sat unlit on the marble island. The scent of fresh eucalyptus from my morning arrangements was crisp, not rotting.

I was not in a sinkhole. I was not in a digital graveyard.

I reached for the amber pill bottle on the counter. My hand was steady. No mud. No blood under the fingernails. I unscrewed the cap and dumped the contents into my palm.

Twenty-eight pills.

Yesterday, there had been twenty-nine. I’d taken one before the world turned into a snaked documentary. I stared at the label. Dr. Aris. My name. Last Thursday. The ink was fresh, not archival. There was no hidden label for Elena Thorne. No 1998.

"It was the methane," I whispered. My voice was a staccato wreck. "A localized leak. Hallucinations."

Delulu is not the solulu, Elara. Not in a managed utopia like Blackwood Terrace.

I looked across the garden easement. Julian’s house was a glowing lantern of glass and transparency. He was there, standing on his porch. He was wearing a mustard-yellow silk blouse—the exact blouse I’d ruined forty-eight hours ago.

He was holding a Starbucks cup. He looked at his Apple Watch.

Then he looked directly at me. He raised the cup in a mock toast.

The Ring doorbell notification made my blood freeze. I didn't need to check the monitor. I knew who was there. Marcus. He’d be holding a white box. A "peace offering." A biometric hub designed to monitor the air quality, but really designed to harvest my hyper-vigilant brain.

I turned away from the window, my heart a fist pounding against my ribs. I needed to know if I was the subject or the architect.

I walked to the laundry room closet. I pulled out the chemistry kit I used for soil toxicity work. My hands fumbled with the reagent bottle. I was lowkey terrified that the liquid would turn neon-blue again. I scraped a residue from the amber bottle. I added the catalyst.

The liquid turned a soft, comforting purple.

Zoloft. Just Zoloft.

"Okay," I breathed. "Okay. You're crazy. You're just like Mom. It’s a break. A psychotic break."

I felt a surge of relief that was closer to grief. Being crazy was safe. Being crazy meant the world wasn't a recording. It meant Marcus wasn't a predator. It meant Julian wasn't an editor.

The hammering on the front door started.

"Elara! Open up! I brought you that gift!"

It was Marcus. His voice had the rural Ohio warmth I’d grown up with. It wasn't a recording. I ran to the mudroom, throwing the deadbolt with a frantic, mechanical click.

Marcus stood there, his expensive wool coat damp from the drizzle. He was holding a sleek white box.

"Hey, kiddo," he said. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. "You look like a hot mess. Rough night?"

"I saw... I thought..." I couldn't finish the sentence.

"The Board warned me the methane levels were spiking," Marcus said, stepping inside. He ambed into the kitchen, setting the box on the island. "It causes vivid dreams. Dislocation. Just take a breath."

He began unboxing the hub. It was a minimalist white puck. No blue light. Just a steady green "Status: Normal" indicator.

"Julian Thorne helped me calibrate it," Marcus said, placing a sensor by the fridge. "He’s a good guy. He noticed you were acting sus at the trash bins last night. He called me, worried you were having an episode."

"Julian called you?"

"Yeah. He moderator for the SafeGate app, Elara. He sees everything. He’s just looking out for the neighborhood."

I sat on a barstool, the marble cold beneath my Lululemon leggings. Marcus moved through the house, installing the sensors with the precision of a man who understood the assignment. He placed one by the basement door. One under the sink.

"Where are the shears, Elara?" he asked, his back to me.

"In my apron," I said.

"Why are you wearing the apron at 9:00 AM? You don't have a corporate launch today."

"I... I wanted to be ready."

Marcus turned around. He didn't look disappointed. He looked clinical. "Take the meds, Elara. The blue ones. The ones Dr. Aris sent over."

"They're not blue," I said. "They're white. I just checked."

Marcus froze. He looked at the bottle on the counter. Then he looked at me.

"Check again," he whispered.

I walked to the counter. I picked up the amber bottle.

The pills inside were bright, neon-blue. And they seemed to pulse in the low light of the kitchen.

"I just... I just checked them," I gasped. My vision began to tunnel. "They were white. I swear to God, they were white."

"You're glitching, honey," Marcus said. He stepped toward me, his hand open. "Zurich wants the data. They want to see how the hyper-vigilant brain reacts to a reconstructed timeline."

"Zurich? Marcus, what are you talking about?"

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He swiped the screen, showing me a live feed of a bedroom.

My bedroom.

And in the bed, sleeping soundly, was a woman who looked exactly like me. She was wearing my favorite silk pajamas. She had a cool, damp cloth on her forehead.

"That's me," I whispered. "How is that me?"

"That was forty-eight hours ago," Marcus said. "We’re running the rehearsal in a closed loop now. To minimize the server lag. You’re currently in the middle of a high-fidelity simulation of Tuesday morning."

"No. I'm real. I'm here."

"Are you?"

Marcus walked to the window. He pointed across the easement.

Julian Thorne was standing on his porch. He was stirring his Starbucks cup with his left hand.

But as I watched, Julian stopped. He looked at his watch.

Then he reached out and grabbed the glass of his own window. He pulled.

The glass didn't resist. It peeled back like a layer of plastic wrap.

Behind the glass, there was no house. There was only a wall of blue-lit servers, humming with a predatory hunger.

"Action," Julian’s voice spoke, but it didn't come from across the garden.

It came from the shears in my apron pocket.

I pulled the shears out. They were vibrating. A low-frequency hum that made my teeth ache. The scent of methane exploded from the carbon-steel blades.

"The recording works better when there's a chase, Elara," Marcus said. His voice was a flat, perfect recording of my mother’s voice. "Run."

I didn't amble. I schlepped through the mudroom door, but the gravel easement was gone.

Instead, the door opened into a long, impossibly long hallway lined with steel filing cabinets. The floor was white oak, but it was covered in a dark, thick liquid that smelled of old copper.

I turned back to the kitchen, but Marcus was already gone. In his place was the gurney from my driveway, pushed by neighbors who were all wearing AirPods.

They were all smiling.

And in the center of the gurney was a white box. My name was typed on a label-maker strip on the lid.

I lunged for the gurney, trying to smash it with the shears, but my foot slipped on the dark liquid.

I fell.

Exactly like the recording.

As I hit the floor, I saw a monitor mounted on the wall. It showed a live feed of my kitchen.

I was there. I was standing at the counter, holding an amber bottle.

But as I watched, the Elara on the screen looked at her hands.

And they were completely red.