The phone That wouldn't ring

"I was somewhere crowded, a store maybe, or a station, kept shifting between the two, and I reached for my phone out of habit, just checking, and it wasn't there. patted the same pocket like three more times, like it would just appear if I checked enough, that stupid loop you do when you already know the answer. started retracing steps, except the steps didn't make sense, hallways connecting to places I definitely hadn't walked through, and I could feel this frustration building fast, faster than it probably should for a phone, like something bigger was riding on finding it. asked someone working there, a face I didn't know, if they'd seen it, and they just shrugged, barely looked at me, which made the anger spike even more. went through a bag that wasn't really my bag, dumped stuff out on a counter, none of it mine either now that I really looked, random objects I've never owned, and no phone anywhere in the pile. kept snapping at people who weren't even talking to me, muttering under my breath, that specific kind of mad where you know you're being unreasonable but can't stop it anyway. tried calling it from someone's phone at one point, borrowed it without really asking, and it just rang and rang, no one answering, not even voicemail kicking in, just endless ringing that somehow made me angrier than if it'd gone straight to voicemail. threw the borrowed phone down on a bench, immediately regretted it, but nobody around seemed to care about that either. kept searching, same aisles looping back around somehow, same faces not helping, and the frustration never let up, never resolved, just sat there simmering the whole rest of the dream. woke up already reaching for my nightstand before I was even fully awake, relief hitting only once my hand actually found it sitting there charging like normal."