The Missing Floor - Chapter 9: Load-Bearing

The change was subtle at first, the way structural damage always is. Nothing dramatic cracked or shattered. Nothing collapsed. The building simply began to include me.

I noticed it the morning after the meeting. I had slept deeply—too deeply—and woke with the unsettling sense that I had missed something important. My chest felt light, almost hollow, as though I had exhaled and never quite inhaled again. When I stood, the floor vibrated gently beneath my feet. Not movement exactly. Recognition.

I skipped breakfast and stepped outside for air. The moment I crossed the threshold, nausea hit me hard enough to stagger. My ears rang. My vision tunneled. I leaned against the brick façade, gasping, unable to shake the feeling that I had left part of myself behind.

The sensation eased only when I returned inside.

By the end of the week, it was undeniable. I felt calmer within the building. Sharper. More focused. The anxiety I’d carried for years dissolved the moment the elevator doors closed. When I stood between floors six and eight, my heartbeat slowed to match the steady vibration beneath my feet.

The elevator panel changed beneath my fingers. The indentation between six and eight had become unmistakable. It accepted my thumb with a faint, yielding resistance, warm and reassuring in a way that made my stomach twist.

The building was adjusting.

So was I.

I started dreaming differently. Not nightmares—designs. Schematics of tension and weight. I understood instinctively which walls bore more strain, which tenants contributed more to balance. I could feel absences now—apartment doors left too long unopened sent a dull ache through my ribs, like a stress fracture forming inside me.

Mr. Hargreeve noticed.

“You’re integrating well,” he said one evening, watching me as I stood barefoot in the lobby, feeling the building through the soles of my feet.

That was when I realized the truth I hadn’t allowed myself to say aloud.

I wasn’t living here anymore.

I was helping it stand.

Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model