The Missing Layer

Morning arrives in your apartment exactly as it did yesterday: the same rain ticking at the window, the same kettle rattling on the counter, the same phone alarm chirping from beneath a cushion. But every garment is gone. There are no clothes in the wardrobe, no towels in the bathroom, no uniforms in the shop downstairs—not even fabric scraps or laundry on the line. You remember wearing clothes last night. Everyone else acts as if the idea is absurd. On the radio, the forecast and traffic report proceed without a word about it.

At 8:12, your neighbor Niamh O’Dwyer, a 34-year-old paramedic, knocks to borrow your phone charger. She stands in the shared hallway, completely at ease, already discussing a shift change as if nothing about the morning is strange. Her ambulance crew are heading out as usual, and the city’s buses are running. Your phone, however, has filled with old photos in which everyone appears just as bare as they are now. You can try to convince Niamh, investigate the vanished evidence, or play along while the world’s ordinary routines keep moving. By noon, you have to decide whether this is a private glitch—or the new normal.