Another day passed without marking themselves as significant.
That was the danger of them.
They did not arrive loudly or announce escalation. They stacked quietly, one on top of another, each day convincing Zane that the previous one had been manageable, that endurance was still working, that nothing had tipped beyond control.
The cold stayed.
Not dramatic. Not incapacitating. Just present.
It lived in his chest first, a tightness he noticed only when he climbed the stairs too quickly or spoke longer than he meant to without pausing for breath. It traveled upward in the mornings, leaving his throat raw and his voice rough enough that he cleared it more often than usual during meetings.
Someone commented on it once.
"You sound like hell," one of the associates said, half joking, half impressed. "You need to sleep."
Zane smiled thinly and waved it off.
"Just a cold."
That phrase became a refrain.
He said it to his team.
