I was carrying someone's silence up the ridge

I dreamed I was leading a climb in fog so thick you couldn’t see your own hands. The client behind me kept falling behind, not from fatigue, but because they were dragging something heavy—something invisible. I didn’t ask what it was. I just kept walking, feeling the weight shift with every step, like a stone wrapped in wool. At the summit, I turned and saw their face—calm, empty—and then realized I’d been carrying it all along. When I woke, my left shoulder still ached, as if the mountain had folded into me.