Erika

The music pressed in, steady and loud enough to blur words into a single moving sound. I laughed when someone bumped my shoulder, though I didn’t catch what was funny, my cup already half gone. Then the taste shifted—faintly bitter under the citrus—and I paused, tongue pressing up like I could undo it. “Have you seen Lila?” I asked, catching a wrist that slipped free almost immediately. “Kitchen,” someone said, already turning away. The kitchen was heat and bodies and a spill of faces that didn’t settle into hers. The floor tipped—not enough to fall, just enough to notice. My grip tightened. “You okay?” a voice said, close. I turned too fast. “I—yeah. My drink’s weird.” “I’m Seth,” he said, calm, like that explained him. “You don’t look good. Come upstairs—quieter.” “I should find my friend.” “You can call her once you sit down,” he said, guiding me by the elbow, not rough, just certain. “You don’t want to drop in here.” The hallway stretched wrong, doors set too far apart. My legs lagged, slow to answer. “Easy,” Seth murmured. “I got you.” I nodded because stopping felt harder. My phone—somewhere. My bag dragged at my shoulder like it was filled with wet sand. I tried Lila’s name again but it came out thin, unfinished. “Almost there,” he said. We passed one door, then another. The music thinned to a dull throb behind us. A small, stubborn alarm pressed up through the fog, steady now, impossible to ignore. “I—need to sit.” The door opened to a bedroom, the lamp light off in a way I couldn’t correct, and Seth guided me in. The door clicked behind us. My hand found the knob this time and stayed there, tight, as if holding it might keep something from finishing.