She woke and thought she heard a scream. Perhaps she had dreamt it, but she still fearfully anticipated the next one.

Stay safe. That’s what they said. She found it made her shiver, her skin prickled like heat rash every time she heard it. In the end, when the hospitals couldn’t cope and death hung in the air like a smog, they told everyone to stay at home.

Isolation was a prison sentence. Repeats on the television, the internet full of bad news and speculation.

Then one day it went black.

The world was filled with a kind of silence she had never encountered before. There was nothing to fill in the void, to calm the voice inside her head. So, she had no choice but to let it take over completely and that’s all she could hear in her waking moments. Sleep was a temporary escape, but she always woke with her throat feeling scratched.

Do not go outside they said. But she looked enviously through the window, nature taunting her.

This darkness became worse.

Tonight, she felt the anxiety bubble up until it threatened to explode, and she tore away her duvet and stood there in the emptiness, feeling exposed and vulnerable.

Do not let it in they said, protect yourself. The waiting was worse she thought. The anticipation running through her like an electric current.

She opened the window and took a breath.