"Let me out!"
I screamed, my small fists hammering against the locked door until my knuckles turned red and my throat was dry.
Tears blurred everything, but I kept pounding, begging, voice cracking with desperation.
"Please… let me out…"
No answer…
My legs buckled. I slid down the door, sobs turning to gasps, until exhaustion swallowed me whole. I curled up on the cold floor and fell into a deep, suffocating sleep…
I jolted awake in my bed, heart slamming against my ribs, sheets twisted and damp with sweat.
That dream again.
The same locked door. The same silence pressing in from all sides.
It had happened years ago, when I was little, but lately it returned almost every night, sharper, heavier, like it was trying to drag me back inside that room.
Back then, I wasn't just mischievous. My parents called it "hyperactive," but that word felt too small.
I was violent.
I fought anyone who looked at me wrong.
I threw punches without hesitation, stones without regret, straight at heads, full force.
By some miracle, no one ever ended up seriously injured.
But my parents paid anyway.
Endless apologies. Endless compensation.
The medical bills alone became a mountain we could barely climb.
Normal childhood trouble was one thing.
Mine was something else, something they couldn't control.
So they chose the only thing left.
Strict discipline.
When they were home, I wasn't allowed outside.
When they both had to leave, the door locked behind them with a final, heavy click.
At first I raged.
I smashed chairs, shattered lamps, tore cushions apart, anything to fight back against the walls closing in.
Dad would come home, survey the wreckage, and give that cold, mocking smile.
"Well done," he'd say, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Keep going. Smash more. It's still cheaper than groveling to someone else's parents… or paying their hospital bills."
The punishment dragged on for years.
Second grade. Third grade. All the way into junior high.
The wild boy slowly disappeared.
Day by day, trapped inside those four walls, something inside me broke quietly and completely.
I stopped fighting.
Stopped begging.
I became someone else, quiet, withdrawn, a stranger even to myself.
And the worst part?
Deep down, a small voice still wondered if I'd deserved it all along…
Trapped inside day after day, with nothing but the same four walls and the ticking of the clock, boredom became a weight that pressed down on me harder than any punishment.
Books were the only thing that kept me sane. My only door to the outside world.
At first, they were simple: bright children's stories, fairy tales, collections of stories my parents bought on purpose, probably hoping they would calm me down.
I devoured them.
Then, as I got older and the stacks on the shelves grew, the books changed.
More of them appeared. Thicker, heavier, stranger.
By fourth grade, I was lost in fantasy worlds and martial arts epics, pages filled with heroes who could shatter mountains and villains who schemed in shadows.
By fifth grade, I reached for things far beyond my years. Dense classics, philosophy, ancient texts with words I could barely pronounce.
I read whatever fell into my hands.
Anything to fill the silence.
When something confused me, some passage too deep, some idea too twisted, I would go to my parents.
Mom would glance at the page, frown, and shrug.
"I don't know either. Ask your father."
Dad's answer was always the same: short, flat, final.
"I don't know."
One day I couldn't let it go.
"If neither of you understands them," I asked, holding up a heavy volume of old poetry and essays, "why do we keep buying these?"
He didn't even look up from his newspaper at first.
Finally, he lowered it just enough to meet my eyes.
"Does not understanding something mean we can't own it?" he said, voice calm, almost amused. "We put them on the shelf. When guests come, it looks good. Impressive. Educated family, right?"
He folded the paper and went back to reading, like he had just explained the weather.
I stood there, book heavy in my hands, a cold knot forming in my stomach.
That wasn't why people bought books.
That wasn't why anyone filled a home with words they never intended to read.
Something about his answer felt wrong. Deliberately wrong.
Like the books weren't for me at all.
Like they were part of some quiet performance... a mask the family wore when the world was watching.
I didn't push it again.
I stopped asking questions.
But from that day on, every time I pulled a new volume from the shelf, I wondered.
Who were these books really for?
And why did it feel like the more I read, the less I actually knew about the people keeping me locked inside with them?
By the time I started middle school, I had changed completely.
The wild troublemaker from elementary school was gone. Teachers praised me as quiet, diligent, and the perfect student. My parents nodded with quiet relief.
The punishments, the locked doors, had ended years ago.
But lately, those memories refused to stay buried.
They came back in my dreams, night after night, vivid and suffocating.
The click of the lock. The endless silence. The walls are pressing closer.
I would wake up gasping, heart racing, the taste of old fear still in my mouth.
That puzzled me more than anything.
As I grew older, I understood why my parents had done it. I had been uncontrollable. Dangerous, even.
What I couldn't understand was why those memories, once so raw and painful, now haunted me worse than ever.
Maybe it was because I had spent so many years shut inside, lost in books, rarely stepping outside.
My body had paid the price.
Compared to my classmates, I was pale, weak, and fragile.
Dizzy spells hit me in class without warning. The room would spin. My vision would blur.
The homeroom teacher noticed. She pulled my parents aside, voice full of concern.
They listened, nodded, and promised to keep an eye on me.
But nothing changed.
By now, I was used to it. Comfortable, even.
A true homebody.
My parents couldn't drag me out the door even if they tried.
Dad just shrugged in the end. "It's still better than having a troublemaker," he said, half-joking, half-serious.
That day, walking home from school with my heavy backpack, the dream lingered in my mind like smoke I couldn't clear.
The locked door. The darkness behind it.
I took one step.
Then another.
Then, without warning, something exploded inside my skull.
Pain erupted, white-hot and blinding.
My mind felt like it was swelling, ready to burst.
My legs gave out.
The world tilted.
I felt myself falling, the hard pavement rushing up to meet me…
Strong arms caught me just before I hit the ground.
Everything went black.
In that hazy, sinking darkness, a vision flickered into being.
A pale, delicate hand hovered inches from my face.
It moved closer.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
And I knew, even lost in the void, that whatever was about to happen would change everything.
The pale hand hovered closer, its index finger extended.
Then it touched my forehead: gently, but with unmistakable force.
Tap.
A jolt shot through me, like lightning striking deep inside.
Tap.
Another. Stronger.
With every steady tap, waves of strange energy crashed through my body, building, layer upon layer.
It was too much: overwhelming, suffocating, like I was drowning in power I couldn't control.
Yet beneath the pressure, something else stirred: a deep, forbidden pleasure that spread warm and slow, coiling through my veins, making my breath hitch in ways I didn't understand.
My skin prickled. Every pore opened wide, drinking in something invisible, something alive.
Then the pain hit.
Sharp. Brutal.
My muscles seized, stretched, tore, as if invisible hands were ripping me apart and rebuilding me all at once.
I wanted to scream, but no sound came.
Just when I thought I couldn't take any more, the pain vanished.
In its place rushed a wave of pure, intense pleasure: hot, electric, flooding every nerve, every cell.
It lit me up from the inside, warm and alive in a way I had never felt.
I didn't want it to end.
Then, as suddenly as it began, everything stopped.
The hand disappeared.
The energy faded.
Darkness swallowed me again.
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the hard ground, staring up at a man dressed like he had stepped out of an old scroll.
Long robe. Hair tied in a high bun with a red ribbon.
Rare. Almost impossible in the modern world.
My voice came out hoarse. "Are you… a priest?"
Relief flooded his face. "You're awake. Good."
He leaned closer, eyes scanning me carefully. "You gave this humble Taoist quite a scare, young man. One moment you were walking, the next you collapsed. I barely caught you in time."
His brow creased with lingering worry. "Your name?"
"Lian," I answered, still dazed.
He relaxed, a small smile breaking through. "Good. Good."
I knew why he'd asked so fast.
Too many stories: people faking falls, then suing the helper. Common scam.
But I was just a kid.
To ease the tension I saw in his eyes, I managed a weak grin. "Don't worry. I'm not some old scammer trying to trick you."
He laughed then, loud and warm, all caution gone. "Sharp one, aren't you?"
He stood, offering a hand. "Call me Pingshan. I keep to Xiang Temple, just down the street. This meeting… It feels like fate. If you ever want to talk, come find me."
His words hung in the air, heavier than they should have been.
I took his hand and let him pull me up.
As he walked away, I touched my forehead.
A faint warmth still lingered where the finger had tapped in the darkness.
I whispered to myself, voice barely audible, "Taoism. Going with the flow…"
A shiver ran through me.
"Or maybe… I really do have a connection to it..."
Soon, I was standing in front of our house, hand on the door. When I pushed open the door and stepped inside, Mom looked up from the kitchen.
One glance at my face was enough.
"Lian, you're white as paper. What happened?"
Her voice was already tight with worry.
I didn't try to hide it. I told her everything: the sudden explosion of pain in my head, the collapse, waking up in the arms of a strange Taoist priest.
I left out the vision, the taps on my forehead, the terrifying pleasure mixed with agony. Some things felt too private, too strange to say out loud.
Mom's eyes widened with every word.
"We're going to the hospital. Right now."
She was already reaching for her bag.
Dad was sitting in the living room, newspaper in hand. He lowered it slowly.
"No need," he said, calm and flat. "He's standing here talking, isn't he? It was probably just low blood sugar or heat. Kids faint sometimes."
Mom spun toward him. "He collapsed in the street! A stranger had to catch him!"
"And he's fine now." Dad's tone didn't rise, but there was steel beneath it. "No fever, no injury. You want to drag him through a crowded hospital for nothing?"
They went back and forth, voices sharpening.
I stood in the doorway, feeling the argument build like a storm.
Finally I spoke up. "I don't want to go. I feel okay now."
That should have ended it.
But Mom wasn't ready to let go.
Dad folded the newspaper with deliberate care, looked straight at her, and said quietly:
"Just looking for another excuse to visit your old classmates again, aren't you?"
The room went dead silent.
Mom froze.
Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
Dad's eyes held hers for a long second, cold and knowing.
Then he lifted the newspaper again, like nothing had happened.
I felt the air change, thick with something sharp and unspoken.
Mom turned away quickly, busying herself at the sink so I wouldn't see her face.
But I saw it anyway.
The hurt. The flash of guilt.
And something else I couldn't name yet.
My stomach twisted.
Whatever Dad had just thrown at her, it wasn't about the hospital.
It was about something older.
Something hidden.
And for the first time, I realized the locked doors of my childhood might not have been the only secrets in this house.