Static in My Veins

Chapter 1-Signal Loss

The first thing I notice most mornings is the noise.

Not outside. Not the world.

Inside me.

It starts as a faint pressure behind my eyes, like someone turned the brightness of everything up too high while I was asleep. My body feels slow to load, like a phone stuck at 1% trying to open an app it can't handle.

I stay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling.

If I don't move, maybe it won't start.

But it always starts anyway.

My heartbeat taps against my chest in uneven patterns-too fast, then too aware of itself, like it's checking if I'm still there. I press two fingers to my wrist out of habit. A grounding trick I learned from somewhere I don't remember. Or maybe I do. Doctor's office. Waiting room. That plastic smell of sanitizer and bad news.

It's there again.

Fast.

Too fast for someone who is just lying down.

I swallow and force myself up anyway.

The room tilts slightly when I sit on the edge of the bed. Not enough to fall-just enough to remind me that balance is optional today, not guaranteed.

"Okay," I whisper to myself. Like it helps. Like it ever helps.

My phone lights up on the nightstand. Notifications stacked like they're impatient with me. Messages, reminders, things I said I'd do when I was a different version of myself-one that didn't feel like this.

I ignore them.

My legs finally decide to cooperate when I stand, though they feel borrowed. Like I'm borrowing someone else's body and they didn't leave instructions.

The hallway is quiet.

Too quiet.

That's when I notice the first real crack in the morning: the ringing in my ears. A soft, high static sound like a radio trying to find a station that doesn't exist.

I pause in the doorway of the bathroom, gripping the frame lightly.

"Not today," I mutter.

But my body doesn't take requests.

The sink water runs cold when I turn it on. I splash my face anyway, watching the mirror come into focus slowly-like it's loading my reflection in pieces.

Dark circles. Messy hair. Eyes that look like they didn't fully wake up.

Or maybe like they did wake up... and regretted it.

I lean closer to the mirror.

For a second, I don't feel like a person.

I feel like interference.

Like static given skin.

My chest tightens again. Not pain exactly-more like my body forgot how to expand properly. I press my palm there, breathe in slowly like I've been taught.

In.

Hold.

Out.

The rhythm never feels natural, but I follow it anyway. Like reading instructions in a language I'm still learning.

Some days are louder than others.

Today is loud.

A flash of dizziness hits when I turn too quickly toward the door, and I grab the counter just in time. My fingers curl tight around the edge until it passes.

It always passes.

That's the thing people don't understand.

It always passes... but it always comes back too.

I stare at my reflection one more time before leaving the bathroom.

"You're fine," I tell myself.

But the words don't land.

They just hang there between me and the mirror, like they don't belong to either of us.

Downstairs, the world continues like nothing is wrong.

That's the strangest part.

The kettle clicks. A distant car passes outside. Someone laughs on a video my phone auto-plays when I accidentally touch the screen.

Everything keeps moving.

Even when I don't feel fully in it.

I sit at the edge of the couch, pulling my knees up slightly. My heartbeat is still uneven, but softer now. Like it's watching me instead of fighting me.

I glance at my phone again.

A reminder I set when I was hopeful enough to believe I'd feel better later:

"Be normal today."

I stare at it for a long time.

Then I turn the screen off.

Because I don't really know what normal is supposed to feel like anymore.

And somewhere in the quiet after that thought, I realize something I don't say out loud-

I'm not missing from my life.

I'm just... fading in and out of it.

Like a signal that never stays clear for long.

And today is another day of trying to tune myself back in.