Stepro, can you help me?

The words woke me from my nap like a slap to the face.

I set up in confusion, grogly wiping the sleep from my eyes as I looked around the dim

room.

The door to my bedroom was open, and the potential light of the hallway loomed in the distance.

While my mind scattered to recollect what was going on, I felt my phone in hope of clarity.

The screen was blinding.

No missed calls, no text, nothing.

Only a little caution sign in the upper right corner near the battery.

No service.

Hello?

I called swinging out of bed.

No shock that I was hearing anything at all.

I'm usually a really heavy sleeper.

The house felt empty, abandoned, even, a feeling I was still getting used to in the new

house.

My mother had recently remarried after over a decade of being single.

The man had money, the kind where your house echoes because there's not enough furniture

or bodies to fill the space.

The only thing stranger than your mom, sheking up with someone 15 years older than her, the

house sitting their empty home on spring break.

Lisa, like all the ones mooring, got nothing but silence.

...