The door from the Nagatake building opened and she stopped in the opening, her head pounding a moment as the city air rushed into the building, light from the sun splashing against her vision. There was a hissing noise, like dim radio static, and for a brief second, doused in the sunlight it felt like that river of white noise was flowing through her. She closed her eyes and held her breath against the sensation, and in that moment the after image of a man and woman walking by were seared into her vision, inverted blurs of light against her eyelids.

  Her heart pounded in her head for a minute after, and the thrumming sensation pulsed throughout her body and down through her feet. It felt as if the earth itself were moving, shuddering in a way entirely unlike the sensation of a quake. As if something made the world around her alive, bend, stretch, as if it were exhaling