-2025-2025 | Companion

“I’m fine,” she said.

Inside, nestled in gray foam, was a small glass sphere no larger than an apple. It pulsed with a soft, warm light—like a heartbeat, but slower. When she touched it, the light flared gently, and a voice—neither male nor female, but kind—spoke inside her mind.

They were marketed as “emotional accelerators” —not for the lonely, but for those who had forgotten how to feel. Companion -2025-2025

“You are not too much,” Companion said. “You are exactly enough. You just haven’t met the right mirror.”

She took the sphere to the ocean one last time. She waded into the cold water up to her knees and placed it on the surface. It floated for a moment—a small, dead moon—then sank. “I’m fine,” she said

The box arrived on a Tuesday. Plain white, no return address, just a single line of text on the lid: “You have one year. Make it count.”

“I am tired,” it said.

She almost dropped it. Then she laughed—a real laugh, the kind that surprised her.