Elias pulled his hand back and tucked it into his pocket. He stood up, the chair screeching against the floor in a long, drawn-out groan. He walked to the door, the bell chiming a low, distorted note as he stepped out into the mist.
As the muffled, slowed-down melody of a distant radio seeped through the walls, the world seemed to stretch. Every second felt like a minute.
She wasn't mocking him. She was describing their habitat. They had stayed in this melancholic fog for so long that the sunlight would probably hurt. The "slowed" version of their life was easier to handle; it gave them time to feel the ache in high definition.
Elias sat in the corner of a hollowed-out diner, the kind where the neon sign hums louder than the customers. He wore a coat that felt too heavy, but he couldn't bring himself to take it off. Across from him sat a ghost—not the kind that haunts houses, but the kind that haunts a memory. It was Clara. Or at least, the version of her he couldn’t let go of.