​The Noise That Remains

The alarm wrenched us from sleep
like ice water thrown without warning.

We came up gasping
bolt upright,
hearts already ahead of us.

It wasn’t noise,
it was instruction:

You are not safe.
You cannot stay here.
Sleep is the danger now.

“What’s happening?” she shouted
already fully awake,
already afraid.

The alarm attacked the room,
a high, relentless scream,
like tinnitus weaponised,
drilling straight through thought.

“It’s probably a false alarm.”

My attempt to reassure
her,
and me.

“Go check,” she demanded.

Half-dressed, I hurried to the landing light,
flicked the switch
flooding the hallway.

Downstairs.

“Alexa, turn the lights on.”

Light snapped into the front room
as the alarm kept screaming.

“Make it stop,” she called,
following me in.

“It’s a false alarm,” I said,
already at the box.

Flip the cover.
Punch the code.

Beep.

Still screaming.

“What’s wrong?”

“The code… It’s not taking it.”

“You changed it.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then why isn’t it working?”

“I TOLD YOU NOT TO MESS WITH THINGS”

And there it was
that panic.

The kind I’d seen before.

When it tips
when it stops being ours
and becomes mine.

When shared fear
turns into sole responsibility.

“MAKE IT STOP,” she spat.

The main box.

Get it open.
Pull the fuse.
Disconnect the backup battery.

Simple enough
in a perfect world.

But calm, rational thinking lived somewhere else
somewhere organised,
somewhere useful.

Not here.

Not in this noise,
not tonight

this urgency,
this rising, unwarranted panic

where every solution
arrives already tangled,

and every action
threatens to make it worse.

I gathered my thoughts
and over the noise
they managed one word:

screwdriver.

“Where are you going?”.

“My toolbox — I need a screwdriver.”

“No—” she cut in, already at the kitchen drawer.
“You know we’ve got one in here.”

“Hurry,” she pushed.
“We’ll wake the neighbours — the police will be here”

“MAKE IT STOP.”

I easily managed three screws
The screwdriver finding them without thought.

But there’s always one.

The last.

Worn down.
Stubborn.
Refusing to give.

A screw I recognised
from the last time I was here.

The bells kept ringing.
The shouting didn’t let up.

I struggled with both.

Then
it gave.

The casing came free
a mess of wires inside.

Blue.
Brown.
Yellow.

For a moment,
it felt like bomb disposal.

I hit the power switch.

The siren kept going.

Backup battery.

I pulled the wires free
quickly, before I could think better of it.

The alarm died.

But the noise didn’t…

Somehow, now it seemed even louder.