The door creaked as it opened, revealing a narrow hallway that smelled faintly of old wood and lavender. Claire stepped inside, her footsteps cautious against the worn floorboards. The apartment was quiet- too quiet-but not in the way that made her uneasy. It felt… waiting. Like the walls had stories to hear, not secrets to hide.
"Rooms at the end of the hall", a voice had told her earlier on the phone. "Keys under the third potted plant. Don't mix them up. Only one's real".
She had found it exactly where they said, a small brass key buried under the cracked ceramic pot of a wilting fern. Now it rested in her palm, warm from her grip, as she stood in a place that was hers- if only temporarily.
The room itself was nothing remarkable. A twin bed with a thin blanket, a small desk scarred by time, and a window that overlooked a fire escape tangled in ivy. But to Claire, it was a palace. It was proof that she existed somewhere.
She dropped her bag by the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress, letting her shoulders slump for the first time in days. The silence pressed in again, but this time, it didn't feel so heavy. She reached into her bag and pulled out a note book- creased, bent, and half- full of thoughts she never dared speak outloud.
On the first clean page, she wrote:
It wasn't poetry. It was profound. But it was hers. And maybe, just maybe, that was the beginning.