Ellie is sitting at her office desk, propping her chin on her palm, staring at the monitor without seeing a single line from the report. There's this voice behind her - laughter light as a feather caught in her throat, a whisper that somehow rises above all the office noise.

She clenches her teeth, fingers involuntarily tightening around her coffee mug until her knuckles whiten. "I hate her," she thinks. She hates how that voice seeps through the sound of printers and phone calls, how it lodges itself in her thoughts, how it makes her flinch whenever she hears her name over her shoulder.

And she hates what happens afterward even more - that treacherous flutter in her chest, as if someone has reached inside and pulled an invisible thread. Again.

She would give anything to make it stop. She would become a beggar standing in the rain by the highway with a sign saying "Submit to oblivion" - anything to stop feeling this way. Because it's not just "like" - it's an overwhelming, unwanted obsession.

The voice calls her name again, and Ellie closes her eyes. Just for a second, she pretends she can't hear it.