Chapter One – My Story
Thank God it's Saturday. No work, no forced smiles, no pretending I belong.
The world outside my window feels like a bad play I was cast into without a choice. People walking around with stiff grins, laughing at things they don't find funny, gossiping, pretending, bowing to invisible rules just to survive. They call it "life." I call it slow death. Every interaction feels like acting, and I was never good at acting.
That's why I always retreat into my stories. With pen and paper, I don't have to stumble through small talk or wonder if I've said the wrong thing. I create the words. I set the stage. I decide who lives, who loves, who breaks, and who dies. In that world, there's no mask to wear—just raw, unfiltered truth, even if it comes wrapped in fiction.
I like that power. I like the control.
In my stories, people can be monsters or saints, liars or lovers, and I alone get to decide how their fates unravel. No facades. No stress. Just characters being themselves—because I made them that way. It's strange, but sometimes my worlds feel more honest than the one outside.
Do fairy tales exist? Out there, in the streets, probably not. Out there, love is conditional, happiness is a performance, and peace is just a brand sold in commercials. But with my pen, fairy tales breathe. I can make them real.
That's why, every night, I pray the same prayer: Lord, put me inside my own book. Let me escape into my words. Make me the leading character. Let my story be the one I live.
It's childish, maybe even insane, but I whisper it anyway. I even find myself wishing on shooting stars like some desperate child. That's how badly I want out.
Midnight again. Another night, another prayer.
On the desk across from my bed lay Silent Noise—my newest creation, my masterpiece. The title stared back at me like an eye that refused to close. I'd filled every page with pieces of myself, stitched into characters that felt too real at times. Sometimes, I caught myself listening for their voices after I put the pen down.
I never shared the story. It was mine alone—my escape, my secret, my greed. Too raw to give away. Too personal to release into the world.
The notebook looked ordinary, just paper and ink, but to me, it pulsed with something else. A heartbeat that wasn't mine. I wondered, not for the first time, if the characters resented me for locking them inside, frozen in sentences. Maybe they waited for me to open the cover just so they could breathe again.
I sat on the edge of my bed, hands clasped, and whispered the prayer again.
That's when it happened—
A sudden cold breeze slipped through the room, brushing against my arms like icy fingers. I froze. My heart skipped. I knew I had shut the window earlier, yet the curtains stirred as though something had pushed past them.
The notebook rustled. Its cover lifted slightly, then fell flat, as if exhaling.
I stared. Too long. Too hard. My chest tightened. For a breathless second, I swore something was listening. Something alive in the silence.
I blinked, and the movement was gone. The curtains hung still. The notebook lay flat. My skin prickled with goosebumps.
"Overreacting," I whispered to myself, though my throat was dry. "You're just tired. Just tired."
I stood quickly, forcing myself to move, and shut the window even though it hadn't been open. I checked the lock twice, then retreated beneath my blanket like a child hiding from shadows.
But the chill didn't leave.
It pressed into the room, thick and suffocating, seeping into the mattress and into my bones. My bed felt different tonight—too soft, almost like it was swallowing me whole.
I rolled onto my side, pulling the blanket tighter, but unease gnawed at me. Something about the silence was wrong. Too heavy. Too deliberate.
I tried to ignore it, tried to force my breathing into rhythm, but the thought echoed in my skull: What if someone finally answered my prayer?
My pulse drummed. I closed my eyes. The darkness behind my lids wasn't comforting—it was alive, shifting, full of static.
Minutes passed. Or maybe hours. Sleep tugged at me, but I wasn't sure it was sleep anymore. My body felt pinned, as if invisible hands were pressing me into the mattress. I tried to lift an arm, but it was too heavy. My chest rose and fell in shallow gasps.
And then I heard it.
The silence wasn't silence at all. Beneath it was a low hum, deep and steady, vibrating through the floorboards. Like a voice too faint to understand. Not spoken. Not sung. Hummed.
I strained to listen, heart hammering against my ribs. The hum grew louder, almost inside me now, crawling up my spine and settling in the back of my skull. Words flickered in it—unformed, broken, but there.
I wanted to sit up. To turn on the light. To check if the notebook had moved again. But I couldn't. My body was sinking deeper, my limbs heavy, the blanket clinging like quicksand.
A thought surfaced, sharp and sudden: Maybe I'm not praying into the void. Maybe something has been listening all along.
The hum surged, swallowing every other sound, pressing against my skull until my thoughts blurred. My heartbeat stuttered. My eyes rolled back.
The last thing I remember was silence again—thick, heavy, unnatural silence—collapsing over me like a coffin lid.
And then—nothing.