When he opened his eyes, the world didn't feel new.
It felt… restored.
Like something broken had been swept under a rug and smoothed over with silence.
The room was exactly as he remembered it, though he wasn't sure he had any right to remember anything. The curtain still leaked a soft light that didn't seem to come from outside. The air smelled of paper and time, and the mirror in the corner was still veiled in white cloth, as if even reflections were being hidden from him.
He sat up slowly.
There, on the desk, sat a letter.
Unsealed.
No name.
No mark.
Just an envelope, gently yellowed at the edges, like it had been waiting far longer than it should have.
He didn't remember writing it.
He didn't remember being here before.
But his hand trembled as he reached for it.
Some part of him, deep and silent, already knew what was inside would change nothing—and that made it worse.
He pulled the paper out and unfolded it.
The handwriting was sloppy, hurried. Words trailed off. The ink blotched in places, as if whoever wrote it was running out of time. Or clarity. Or both.
It read:
If you're reading this, then the archive is still bleeding.Don't listen to him. He's kind, but not on your side.He knows what page you're missing.Ask him where the door leads. He won't tell you the truth, but he'll say something close to it.If the shelves begin to shift, don't follow them.They don't go where you think.You left something in the spiral room. Don't open it until you're ready.If you find the page with the name on it—yours or theirs—don't read it aloud.It's not just memory that slips away.It's self.It's self.It's s—
The sentence ended there.
Just a smear of ink trailing off the page.
He held the letter in both hands, reading it over again, slower, hoping the rest of the sentence might materialize if he stared hard enough.
It didn't.
The silence around him deepened.
Not louder.
Just heavier.
Like even the room itself was pretending not to exist.
He closed his eyes.
Tried to think of what the letter meant.
But every time he tried to focus on the words—the archive, the spiral room, the page with the name—a cold fog settled over the thoughts. He could remember reading the letter. He just couldn't hold onto what it said.
Not for long.
Not without it starting to bleed.
"I keep forgetting," he whispered.
He said it like a confession.
But no one was there to forgive him.
Not even himself.