The world remained still, yet Ramses' soul pulsed with motion. The revelation from his dream had stirred something irreversible. No longer was he simply surviving the silence—he was shaping it.
Today, he felt a pull. Not to wander, not to explore, but to create.
It started with a whisper in his mind, a simple thought: Mark this journey. Give it form.
As he walked through the city, he searched for the right place. Not a place of grandeur or beauty, but a space that resonated. Finally, he found it—an abandoned rooftop, cracked and forgotten, high above the frozen streets. From here, he could see the sleeping city. It was his sanctuary now.
He stood in the center of the rooftop and looked around. Bricks from a crumbling wall, discarded metal beams, shards of broken glass—useless debris to most. But to Ramses, they were pieces of something sacred.
I'll make something that speaks for me, he thought. A companion that tells the truth of this silence.
He began collecting the materials.
It took hours, or maybe days—time meant little here. He dragged bricks up the stairs, gathered broken tiles from the alleyways, and chipped off wood from abandoned benches. It was hard, dirty work. His hands bled, and his shoulders ached. But for the first time in this still world, Ramses felt productive in the truest sense.
He wasn't just reflecting.
He was expressing.
He chose not to build a statue of himself. This wasn't about ego. Instead, he began shaping a figure—a human form, yes, but faceless. Genderless. It sat cross-legged like a monk, arms outstretched, as if welcoming the world that had long turned away.
The base was made of stone. The chest was built from shattered glass—each piece reflecting fragments of the sky, the city, and Ramses himself. The heart, he carved from metal, taken from a stop sign and etched with deep grooves that spiraled inward.
At the figure's center, he placed a mirror.
The same size as the one from his dream.
He didn't know how, but he found one in a shattered dressing room at an old department store. Perhaps it was coincidence. Or perhaps the dream had planted a seed in his subconscious to find it.
Either way, it fit perfectly in the figure's chest.
When he stepped back to observe his work, it took his breath away.
The sculpture looked serene, ancient, and eternal. It radiated something he couldn't quite name. Not beauty. Not menace. But truth.
Ramses sat in front of it, panting, dust coating his face and arms. And then, as the windless air lay still around him, he began to speak aloud.
"I don't know what you are," he said to the sculpture. "Maybe you're a symbol. Maybe you're me. Or maybe you're everyone who's ever been stuck in silence."
He reached into his satchel and pulled out his journal.
Then, on the rooftop beside his creation, he began to write—not a confession, not a diary, but a manifesto.
A declaration of what he had learned in the void.
The Manifesto of Stillness
To whoever finds this—
You may never understand what happened to me. But know this: stillness is not the enemy. Stillness is the soil where change takes root.
I was broken once. Fractured in spirit. I thought the world had abandoned me. But the truth is... I had abandoned myself.
Then the world froze. And in that silence, I heard my own voice for the first time.
I trained my body. I challenged my mind. I forgave my past. I walked alone through the memories I used to run from.
And when I reached the edge of who I thought I was, I discovered someone new. Someone worthy. Someone whole.
You are not your lowest moment. You are not your worst thought. You are not the scars others gave you.
You are what you choose to become—again, and again, and again.
This sculpture is not a god. It is not an idol. It is a companion in silence.
And if the world ever wakes again, may this serve as a beacon for those still walking their own deserts.
You are not alone.
—Ramses
He folded the paper carefully and placed it inside a sealed jar, tucking it beneath the sculpture's feet. The wind didn't blow. The city remained mute. But Ramses felt a quiet hum in his chest—as though the rooftop, the sculpture, the act itself had shifted something intangible.
This figure, this silent companion, was a marker.
Not of his triumph, but of his transformation.
It didn't matter if no one ever saw it.
It existed.
And that was enough.
He stood and looked at it one last time. The mirror on its chest reflected the sky—unchanged, but now layered with meaning. In it, Ramses saw himself. Not the scared, aimless man he once was, but the grounded soul he had become.
He touched the mirror gently.
"I'm not afraid anymore," he said.
The sculpture said nothing.
But the silence that answered him felt full—not empty.
For the first time, he understood the paradox.
In silence, he had found voice.
In stillness, he had found movement.
And in this companion of stone and glass, he had found a reminder that he would carry into whatever world waited beyond.