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One wrong move, and you might slip right into a pocket universe. Or out of one.

I’d seen the real bar. I’d seen the real road, with a car going by. That’s the real world.

And we’re … We’re in the moldering remains of an abandoned bar, acting as if it’s whole and newly renovated.

A mass hallucination?

Something the bartender put into our drinks?

No, the bar had been this way when we first walked in.

A mass hallucination that started before that.

From the time of the accident.

But if I saw that car speed past, is there an accident? Are our vehicles out there, piled up behind a fallen tree? They can’t be. Not in the real world.

I swallow hard.

“Ellie?” Henry says again. “Are you okay?”

“Mmm, not really,” the bartender says. “These pocket universes, the oxygen can be a little thin, you know. Makes people feel light-headed and see all sorts of—”

“Shut up!” I bellow, and everyone jumps.

Is it my imagination or does even the silent woman at the bar react, her shoulders hunching in?

I rub my temples. “Please, just stop teasing me, okay?”

The bartender’s head tilts, and he watches me with bird-sharp eyes. Am I not going to tell the others what I saw? His lips curve. Of course I’m not.

I will say nothing because we just accused the newcomer of lying. We said his story was so preposterous that clearly he was maliciously pranking us.

And now I’ll give one even more outrageous? Say that I walked out of a ruined version of this bar and ended up in a ruined version of my life?

Not a chance.

Except that’s not why I keep silent. I don’t say anything because it would do no good. I suffered a blow to the head earlier. If I say what I just experienced, the explanation will be clear to everyone.

Head injury.

Hallucination.

I rub my eyes.

“Ellie?” Henry says.

I pull from his grip and when I say “Stop,” it comes out as a snap, and he recoils.

I see the hurt and confusion in his eyes, and I want to smooth that over, but even more, I want to tell him what I experienced, and I can’t, and that makes me feel …

Alone.

So goddamn alone.

Nothing new, is it?

That’s where the nightmare comes from. A fear that I’m walking through life with soft-soled shoes, leaving no impression, easily forgotten. Tell a guy our relationship isn’t working, and he shrugs and says “Okay,” and I never hear from him again. Tell a friend I’m too busy for lunch, and if I don’t reach out myself, I never hear from her again. Start a job with the manager enthusing over me, so certain I’ll be promoted in no time, and then six months later they need to be reminded who I am.