The room was too quiet for the kind of day she was having.
No fan. No voices. Just the sound of pages turning and the dull pressure behind her eyes that had been building since morning. She sat cross-legged on her bed, the book resting against her knees, its spine cracked open at a place she had promised herself she wouldn't reread again.
She reread it anyway.
The girl in the novel was standing alone in a hallway, listening to footsteps that never came. Waiting for someone who had already decided not to return.
Her throat tightened.
"Stop," she whispered—to the book, to herself, she wasn't sure.
She had started reading to distract herself. That was the lie she told every time. The truth was uglier: reading was the only place where her chest didn't feel like it was collapsing inward. Where the mess inside her had words. Shape. Meaning.
She dragged her finger under the sentence, slow and careful, as if touching it too hard might make it disappear.
She didn't know how much longer she could pretend she was fine.
Her breath hitched.
The walls of her room suddenly felt closer than they had a moment ago. Posters peeling at the corners. A half-packed school bag by the door. The clock ticking too loudly, as if it was counting down to something she wasn't ready for.
She blinked hard, but the page was already blurring.
"This is stupid," she muttered, swiping at her eyes. She wasn't supposed to cry over fictional people. She had real things to deal with. Real problems. Real silence at dinner. Real conversations that ended before they began.
But the book didn't let go.
The next paragraph felt heavier, denser, like it resisted being read.
She leaned forward, shoulders curling in, as if protecting something fragile inside her.
The words swam.
Her chest tightened, breath coming shallow now. Not panic—she knew panic. This was worse. This was the slow accumulation of everything she had been holding in for weeks, maybe months, pressing against her ribs with nowhere to go.
She turned the page.
It took effort. Like pushing against water.
The sentence at the top was unfinished.
And then she realized she was no longer alone—
It stopped there.
No punctuation. No next line.
Her fingers trembled as she flipped the page again. Blank. Another page—blank. The rest of the chapter was empty, as if someone had erased it mid-thought.
"That wasn't there before," she said aloud.
Her voice sounded wrong. Too thin.
A sharp pressure bloomed behind her eyes, and suddenly the room felt unbearably small. The air thick. She pressed the book against her chest, not knowing why, only that letting go felt impossible.
Her thoughts spiraled, fast and unkind.
Get it together.
You're overreacting.
You always do this.
The clock ticked again.
Too loud.
She squeezed her eyes shut—not to escape, but because there was nothing left to hold on to. The feelings crashed all at once: the loneliness, the exhaustion, the ache of being unheard even when she was standing right in front of people.
Her grip tightened on the book.
For a split second, she thought she felt warmth beneath her palms.
Then the pressure vanished.
No falling. No spinning.
Just—absence.
When she opened her eyes, the light was different.
Not the soft yellow of her room, but something cooler, sharper. The smell of paper and dust was gone, replaced by stone and damp air. Her feet were no longer tucked beneath her; they were flat against a hard surface that sent a chill straight up her spine.
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
Slowly, afraid of what she might see, she lifted her head.
The hallway stretched out in front of her—narrow, dim, exactly as it had been described two pages ago. Stone walls. Flickering lamps. A door at the far end, slightly open.
Footsteps echoed.
She froze.
Someone stepped into the light.
And before she could speak, before she could breathe, the stranger looked straight at her and said,
"You're not supposed to be here."