Annie's phone began to ring, as indicated by the popup notification in her contact lens, and she jumped.

A couple minutes had passed since the incident, and she only had a few more before her lunch ended. She was sitting with her hands on her temples and her elbows on her desk, her eyes opened wide.

What the fuck.

This was the thought that had repeated in her mind since the portal in the ceiling had disappeared, leaving her with no trace or evidence that anything had happened.

I'm losing my fucking mind. Her lips trembled. Get your shit together. Get your shit together! She cleared her throat and blinked a couple times, then took her earpiece out of her purse and answered the call. "Carl?" she said, unable to keep the confusion out of her voice. Please say that was you somehow, Carl. Please, please, please.

"Hey, Annie, glad I managed to get you before your lunch ended. Just wanted to call and say I miss you." her husband said, sounding happy to have reached her.

Oh, fuck, he's just doing one of his lunchtime calls. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, I'm losing my shit. She took a few deep breaths, feeling again like she was coming down from a very bad trip, despite that being something she hadn't indulged in since before she'd even met Carl.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"I miss you too," Annie said, wishing he would say something—anything—to give even the tiniest hint that she wasn't going crazy.

"Anyway, that's it," Carl said, just as he always did when he made a quick call to talk to her at lunch because he was the best, but she really needed him to talk to her just a little bit more today, and that wasn't really asking for too much if she was going crazy, was it? "I'll—"

"You wore your khakis to work today?" Annie asked, needing to confirm that he had not, in fact, been wearing a pair of dark gray pants that she'd never seen before.

"Yup," Carl said after a short delay in which he was probably double-checking to make sure he really was wearing the pants that he thought he was because he was so adorable like that sometimes and it was something she really loved about him but right now she needed him to be just a tiny bit more specific so she could make sure—

"Tan ones?"

"Uh-huh," he acknowledged, meaning that he really had just gone out of the house that day wearing his normal business casual like he always did even though most people at his office just wore jeans because he wanted to set an example and she really really loved that he always wanted to set an example but right now she wished he would set less of an example and just talk to her for a while because she was getting really scared and this wasn't something that had ever happened to her before and it felt so real but it couldn't be hahahahaha because that would be crazy wouldn't it and ohhhhh fuck…

Annie took a deep breath. "Okay, just, um… Just checking! I've gotta go. Love you, Carl."

She hung up the phone and stared at her desk.