Weeks later, I still couldn’t pass a mattress without tension crawling up my spine. Hotel rooms felt like tests. Every sound turned into a theory, every sheet inspection a ritual. The fear wasn’t dramatic — it was quiet and constant, a low static I couldn’t switch off.
Friends called it overreaction when they saw my routines, but my body didn’t agree. The itching I felt at night was mostly memory, yet it kept me alert. What lingered wasn’t really about insects anymore — it was about trust. Trust in spaces, in surfaces, in the invisible past of a room.
Even at home, I stayed on guard. I cleaned obsessively, checked corners, watched for signs that might not exist. A creak or a stray sock could spark suspicion. My body had learned a language of vigilance, and it refused to forget.
