The automatic doors of the supermarket divided with a sharp, mechanical click as Marcus entered the building. He felt a sudden, spike of anxiety, a breathless tremor surging through him as he crossed the threshold. His heart gave a violent thud against his ribs before falling straight to the pit of his stomach. He channeled his terror into his hands squeezing the trolley handle till his palms throbbed. Frantically his restless eyes scanned the scene. The shop was filled with loud chatter of students from the local campus who swarmed the aisles in dense clusters. Swallowed within the cacophony his raw senses yearned for the numbing thrall of somnambulism. That silent unfeeling vacuum felt like a profound mercy. Liberation for a soul reaching out towards a vanishing horizon of calm. Gasping for a breath of quiet to still the tension and escape the violent undertow of his racing thoughts. He found himself performing a taut dance of hypervigilance around the aisles. Even as he forced his body forward he felt his back muscles tightening into painful knots while the whispers of self-doubt settled heavily into his bones. Somewhere within this roaring human current as yet unseen could be Elena, the thought alone was exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure. What wonders might unfold if his eyes met hers — or worse if he fell into the shadow of her indifference?