The Long Way Down

The first time it happened, I was sitting cross-legged on the thin carpet of my apartment, the only sound the hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen. I’d been trying to clear my mind, but all I could hear was the traffic below and the drip of the faucet. Then, suddenly, I wasn’t in my body anymore. I was hovering near the ceiling, looking down at my own slumped form. It was like a lucid dream, but I was wide awake.

I felt a presence behind me, and when I turned, she was there. She was tall and willowy, with skin so pale it seemed to glow in the dim light. Her black hair fell past her shoulders, and her eyes were the color of sea glass, flecked with gold. She didn’t speak at first, just tilted her head, studying me. I asked her name, and she said ‘Elena.’ Her voice was like a low hum, the sound of a distant cello.

Over the following months, I looked forward to those drifting sessions. I’d leave my body and find her waiting, always in the same corner of the room, near the window where the evening light filtered through. She was clever, sharp-tongued, and had a dry wit that made me laugh. She’d mock my meditation posture, but always with a knowing smile. I began to feel her even when I was grounded, a cool pressure at my back, a whisper of air when no window was open.

One night, I asked the question that had been gnawing at me. ‘Are you… dead?’ Her expression flickered, just for a moment, before she nodded. ‘I passed away in 2005, when I was twenty-one.’ She said it like she was reading a news headline, but her eyes dropped to the floor. I didn’t press further, sensing a border I shouldn’t cross. She often watched me with a detached intensity, like a cat studying a bird from a high branch.

Then, a few weeks later, I woke up to find Elena sitting on the edge of my bed. Not as a ghostly apparition, but solid, her hand brushing my shoulder. ‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ I whispered. She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. ‘I wanted to see your world from the inside.’ That night, she stayed until dawn, telling me stories of her life: a small town she’d never left, a love that was unrequited, and a final night that she didn’t elaborate on.

I began to see her more often, not just during meditation. She’d appear in the mirror when I brushed my teeth, in the passenger seat of my car, always watching. I felt a possessive warmth, but also a creeping unease. One evening, I asked, ‘Why are you here, Elena?’ She looked at me with those green eyes, and for the first time, I saw something unsettling lying beneath the surface. ‘Because you let me in,’ she said. ‘And I never found the way out.’

I tried to stop meditating, but she came anyway. I’d close my eyes and feel her presence, a pressure in my skull, a chill down my spine. I started to forget what life was like before her, and the memories of my own past began to blur. My reflection seemed slightly off, my features rearranged in a way I couldn’t define. I realized with horror that she wasn’t just a visitor; she was staking a claim.

The last time I slipped out of my body, I found myself in a strange, gray version of my apartment. Elena stood by the window, but the view outside was wrong, a calcified forest of dead trees. ‘Where is this?’ I asked, my voice echoing. She turned, and her smile was too wide. ‘This is where I’ve been waiting, trapped in the space between your thoughts. But now that you’re here, we can stay together.’

I tried to pull back, to return to my body, but I couldn’t. I was stuck, floating in that gray world, while Elena watched with patient satisfaction. From a distance, I could see my own body on the floor, motionless, and a figure rising from it. It was me, but when it turned, it had her eyes. I screamed, but no sound came out. The last thing I remember is her voice, echoing through the void: ‘You wanted a guide, so I came. But now I need a vessel.’

I’m still here, but I’m not entirely me. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself in a window, and I see a tall, pale girl with black hair and green eyes, standing where I should be. And I know that somewhere, in a world I can no longer reach, a man is sitting on a floor, slowly forgetting who he was.