The silence that followed clawed at the edges of my mind.
It was loud. Deafening. Like the world had drawn in a breath and refused to exhale.
My hands trembled. Not the kind of tremble that could be brushed off as a shiver or nerves. No—this was deep. Primal. A shaking that came from something buried so long it forgot it could surface.
I couldn't breathe properly. My chest rose in shallow, panicked bursts, as if I were underwater—as if the air around me had thickened into syrup. I clutched the edge of the couch and tried to still the shaking. But I couldn't.
The journal still lay open in front of me. So still. So damning. The yellow-colored page looked unassuming, but my gaze stuck to it like glue. Those crooked letters, the way they looped and tangled like the thoughts inside my head. That entry. My words. My own handwriting—so jagged and childish, so painfully innocent. How could it be mine? How could I remember writing it and yet not remember the moment itself?
My mind—it pressed against something. A wall. Thin. Cracked.
And on the other side, something was breathing. Something old. Something afraid.
I shut my eyes tight, nails digging into my palm. "I… I know that man," I whispered. My voice felt foreign, brittle like glass underfoot. "I don't know how… but I do."
The words lingered in the air like smoke.
The room seemed to close in on me, suffocating, until I was drowning in my own confusion. I fought it. My chest heaved with effort, each breath a battle.
That fight… Mother… The memories splintered like shards of glass, sharp and painful.
Then, just as quickly, a wave of clarity hit me. I could see it—the man in the doorway, his dark eyes glaring, the rough voice shouting through the thin walls. The image was fractured, but it was there. I was there too—hidden, trembling under the bed, clutching the edge of a worn blanket as my mother struggled with him, her voice frantic, pleading.
The smell of smoke. Not fire smoke, but cigarette smoke—acrid, stale, soaked into every fiber of the curtains. The deep, guttural growl of his anger, the way his footsteps echoed like thunder on bare floorboards.
The walls pressed harder, but I pushed back.
I could hear it now. The knock on the door. The silence before the chaos. My heart skipped in my chest, the beat frenzied. My throat constricted as something broke free in my mind.
"I was hiding," I gasped, my voice cracking with the weight of the truth. "I was in the room, under the bed—I heard everything. Everything." My pulse roared in my ears. "And then… she told me to hide."
A beat.
My breath caught. "She knew… She knew what he was going to do."
Something inside me broke.
I opened my eyes. My hands were trembling harder now, the journal in front of me, the weight of the moment crashing down.
Mother—her words, her warnings, her hands shaking. The dread that had filled that house.
She'd always been strong. Always composed. But that day… that day she broke. And now I knew why.
"I can't—" I closed my eyes again, the room spinning, the air so thick it almost choked me.
Jason moved first. I felt his arms around me, steady and silent, just trying to hold me together.
But I couldn't bear it.
"Don't—" I jerked away from his touch, my voice sharp, raw. "Just… leave me alone."
He froze, arms still slightly outstretched. Denise stood a few feet away, eyes locked on me, something unreadable in her gaze.
Then, gently, she reached out and touched Jason's arm.
A silent gesture.
Jason hesitated, then nodded—barely—and stepped back. His footsteps retreated, slow and reluctant. Denise lingered a moment longer, her eyes soft, searching mine like she wanted to say something. But she didn't.
She just turned and followed Jason out, pulling the door closed behind her.
And I was alone.
Just me and the journal.
And everything it had woken up.
I stared at the journal, my own name scrawled in a corner of the page—so innocent, so trusting. A child who had no idea she'd live with this weight.
That man.
I could still feel his presence lingering, like smoke clinging to fabric long after the fire's gone. I didn't remember his name—God, why couldn't I remember his name?—but I remembered the way he looked at my mother. The hatred in his eyes. The finality.
My stomach twisted.
Had he come back? Had he tried again?
A sudden chill ran through me.
What if he never left?
What if everything—every shattered memory, every sleepless night—wasn't just trauma, but warning?
I pressed my palms to my face, forcing air into my lungs. My fingers were cold, damp with sweat. A sick feeling coiled deep in my belly. The room was silent, but it felt too quiet, like the air had stopped moving, like the house itself was holding its breath with me.
My mind spun.
Could it be that he had always been close? That he had watched, waited? Had he ever truly been gone—or had he just melted into the background, hidden in plain sight?
The thought gripped me, sank its claws into the fragile edge of my sanity.
I needed answers. Real ones.
I needed to know who he was.
What he wanted.
Why the memory of him burned so deeply when everything else was lost in fog.
I turned the journal pages slowly, hoping for more—more entries, more clues, anything to help me piece it all together. But the pages stared back at me, empty, their silence heavier than words. My breath hitched as I traced the ink of my younger self, wondering what else she had seen, what else she had buried to survive.
Because if that man was still out there—and something in my gut told me he was—then remembering wouldn't be enough.
I'd have to face him.
Not just for me.
But for her. For the mother who had shielded me with trembling hands, who had told me to hide even as her own voice broke with fear.
A surge of resolve sparked in my chest, tiny but fierce. I wouldn't run from the shadows anymore.
I would find the truth.
No matter what it cost me.