“I'm so happy to finally meet you!” Mrs. Pedersen said. “Isabella's been talking about you so much these past few weeks.” She was blonde, tall - just an inch shorter than Isabella - and somehow managed to make a flannel shirt and an apron look like modeling high fashion. Aurora had been given warning but, damn. Isabella's mom was hot.

Now that I've made it to a year, there's an additional layer of desire to take a break from this project. I feel kind of like I've earned it. What's the harm, right?

“I just don't see why anyone would ever want me, Nancy,” Helen said. She threw another crumpled tissue onto the pile, even as more tears and mucous ran down her face. “Victor wasn't... wasn't that...”

Nancy pulled Helen close against her side. “Now don't you start thinking that way, Helen,” Nancy said.

 “It's been a fun night, Dave,” Isabella said. “But I really need to get home.” It had been fun. Movie and dinner was classic. David was a good guy. Great sense of humor. Isabella was pondering whether a second date was in the running.

“Oh, no. This can't be happening! It can't!” Denwood scrambled around the construct, ruler in hand, toolkit slung over his shoulder. He remeasured every part of it three times over. This represented almost a year of work. His master project! How could something this simple go wrong?

365 days times 5 minutes. 1825 minutes. Over 30 hours. That's just the lower bound. There have been plenty of days I've written for 10 minutes or more.

Today marks the one year anniversary of Five Minutes a Day.

Raeth's eyelids drooped for the third time that night. It was likely time to turn in. There would be no new revelations here. They had read this book three times already in the past. Somehow, it felt there was something lurking there.

“Another late night, Councilor?” a quiet voice asked from behind.

“Aurora,” Raeth said. Their tone had suddenly shifted to deep and serious, sending chills down Aurora's back. “Put the rock back.”

“Huh?” Aurora asked, turning away from the gate. “This?”

Isabella collapsed to the couch. She had been staring at the wall for several minutes before Kali's insistent meowing forced her to look up. Apparently her lap wasn't in the perfect configuration. With a laugh, Isabella uncrossed her legs and let the Maine Coon jump onto her perch.

“At least your life is still simple, Kali,” Isabella commented, stroking Kali's soft fur. “You don't have a girlfriend with superpowers.”

“So I just need to spray this around the house?” the woman asked. Ingrid, I think it was. I'm horrible with names. A deficiency in this job, to be sure.

“That's right!” I said. “Just once a week! Guaranteed infestation-free or your money back.”

Aurora stared at her ceiling, listening to the faint whispers at the edge of her hearing. They didn't frighten her as much, now that she knew what they were. What did frighten her now, though, was the future. It was why she couldn't sleep. She hadn't slept more than a few hours a night since she'd met Raeth and learned... well, learned only a little. But it was enough to keep anyone awake.

Aurora looked out from the edge of the unstable gate, staring at mud-flats that extended as far as the eye could see. The sky was a uniform gray. The only interruption in the landscape were small groves of a blueish shrub. Stale air wafted by on a light breeze, reminding her of a refrigerator left closed too long.

“How far out are we?” she asked, taking careful steps forward.

“Make it stop! Make it stop! Make them go away!” Aurora cried.

She was huddled in the corner of her room, rocking back and forth. She was holding a pillow to her head, pressed hard against her ears. All the lights were out, leaving only the dim light of the clouded moon to see her by.

Oh, God, oh God. Today was the day. Helen had been waiting weeks for the results. Everyone else on the project was rooting for her, though they were probably thoroughly sick of her bringing it up every day. But now that she was here, standing in front of the Chromorphia headquarters, staring up at the tower of glass and steel, she was afraid to go in.

A burst of noise. Footsteps outside the door. Or was it just another version of the voices? Helen could hardly tell. There was never this much noise here. Just the voices that crept at the edge of perception, coming in crests and troughs. She had lost track of how long she'd spent here, with fear and hallucinations her only companions.

“Hey, mom?” Aurora asked, peaking her head into Helen's office. She waited for her mom to take off her headset and turn around in her chair.

“Hey, sweetie,” Helen replied. “What's up?”

“Why did you never tell me?” Aurora asked. She tried to keep the accusation from her voice. The point here was information, not blame.

Her mom sat across from her at the cafe, her eyes down-turned. “It was never the right time,” Helen said.

“Whatever you do,” Raeth said. “Don't touch the windows.”

As if Aurora needed something else to add to the nameless dread she felt in this place. When she had first discovered the gate, she had heard it from almost a mile away. The whispers that she had thought were madness grew stronger and stronger. She had fled as soon as she found it.