("There's a kind of silence that doesn't wait to be broken —
it just… grows roots in you.")
---
I woke up in the white room again.
No windows.
No walls.
Just white.
Like a photograph overexposed
until all you see is what's missing.
There was no door.
There was never a door.
---
I stood barefoot on the floor —
except, there was no floor.
Only space pretending to be solid.
Like memory.
Every sound I made felt stolen.
---
There was a mirror on the ceiling.
Or maybe it was the sky.
It showed a girl floating.
Hair like ink bleeding in water.
Eyes open, but not seeing.
Hands too still to be reaching.
She looked like me.
But I didn't remember drowning.
Not yet.
---
A voice crackled from the space beside me.
Not from a mouth.
From everywhere at once.
> "You said you wanted to be free."
> "I did," I whispered.
> "Then why do you look so heavy?"
---
I didn't answer.
Instead, I picked up the notebook —
the one that kept appearing no matter how many times I tore it apart.
The cover read:
> DO NOT WRITE THE END.
Inside:
> April 2 — I dreamed in chords again. But none of them matched the voice in my head. Am I out of key… or just out of time?
> April 5 — Someone left a feather on the piano. No birds. No window. Just that. Still soft. Still white.
> April 7 — I opened the fridge and found my name written on a piece of bread. Toasted. Burnt on one side. Like I almost mattered.
---
I tore the page out.
But it reappeared.
I screamed.
The sound didn't echo.
It just folded inward — like the room was swallowing me.
---
I laid on the floor-that-wasn't-a-floor
and tried to remember the last thing he said before he left.
Nothing came.
Only a color:
Blue.
But not sky blue.
The kind of blue you find
between apology and goodbye.
---
The floating girl above me blinked.
Once.
Then again.
Then she spoke — but without moving.
> "Do you remember what you said
the day he left the second time?"
My throat felt like piano wire.
> "I said I wouldn't wait again."
> "You lied," she said.
And suddenly, the ceiling cracked.
---
From the cracks, music fell.
Not melody.
Just fragments.
> "We could've been silence together…"
> "…but I chose noise alone."
> "You don't have to love me in public…"
> "…just remember me in the quiet."
---
The light turned silver.
The floor began to pulse.
Not like an earthquake —
but like a heartbeat.
I pressed my palm to it.
It pulsed with my rhythm.
Or maybe I was pulsing with it.
---
I stood again.
The mirror showed a new version of me:
Eyes open.
Hair floating.
One hand on her chest.
The other bleeding ink.
She was singing.
No sound came out.
But the lyrics appeared on my skin.
One line.
> "I'm not more than free —
I'm just less than caged."
---
And then — a knock.
Not loud.
Not urgent.
Just… present.
I turned.
And in the middle of the room that had no doors —
a door appeared.
Old. Wooden. Slightly ajar.
The handle was made of glass.
Inside it, I saw his eyes.
Watching.
Waiting.
---
And then —
as I reached for it —
The girl in the ceiling mouthed something I'll never forget:
> "If you open it, you can't go back."
---
But I already knew:
> I'd never truly left.