After an hour, I heard it again...
rustling.
Not the kind that comes from shifting sheets or the whisper of curtains in a draft, but something irregular, something alive. It scraped softly, then paused, as if listening. Waiting.
I opened my eyes.
At first, there was nothing...
only a suffocating blanket of darkness pressing down on my vision. My room, so familiar by day, had dissolved into shapeless shadows. But the sound persisted, threading its way into my awareness, tugging at me. Slowly, I turned my head toward the corner.
I squinted, forcing my eyes to adjust. Seconds stretched thin, taut with dread. Then I saw it.
A hole.
Not large, not gaping...
but wrong.
Its edges were uneven, almost pulsing, as if they didn't quite belong to the wall. And from it came that smell...
damp, rotten, something ancient and decaying. It clung to the air, thick and invasive, crawling into my nose and settling at the back of my throat.
I wanted to pull back. Every instinct screamed at me to move, to run, to bury myself under blankets and pretend it wasn't there.
But I didn't.
Not even a millimeter.
Could I really be afraid of something so small? So absurd?
…Impossible.
And yet, fear wrapped itself around my body like invisible chains. My limbs felt heavy, distant, as if they no longer belonged to me. My breathing slowed, then hitched. I couldn't look away. I wouldn't look away.
The rustling grew louder.
Then something changed.
It wasn't the sound. It was the air.
It felt as though the space around me had thickened, like invisible hands were pressing inward. My chest tightened. I tried to inhale, but the breath came shallow, incomplete. Panic flickered at the edges of my mind.
Was this fear?
Or something else?
I had always wondered what it felt like to be suffocated.
Now, as my lungs strained against an unseen force, I began to understand.
And to my horror...
I didn't entirely hate it.
There was something… intimate about it. The closeness. The pressure. As though the world itself was leaning in, wrapping around me, demanding my attention. My pulse quickened, then faltered, caught between resistance and something dangerously close to curiosity.
I yearned for it.
Even as I recoiled.
There was a hunger inside me...
quiet, shameful.
That wanted to be overwhelmed, to surrender to the sensation completely. I imagined the pressure increasing, imagined the air slipping away entirely. My thoughts blurred, my body tingled with something I couldn't name.
A part of me leaned forward.
The rest remained frozen.
I longed for the confinement, yet feared what it might awaken in me. The air felt safer when it was only an idea...
something distant, something I could control by thinking rather than feeling.
But now it was here.
Real.
Closer.
The hole seemed deeper than before. Darker. Endless.
Calling.
My chest tightened further, even before anything truly happened. My lungs stuttered, unsure whether to fight or yield. I wondered...
Who would I become if I stopped resisting?
The thought alone made my breath falter.
I wanted to be held.
But not trapped.
Longing pressed harder than any hand ever could. It seeped into me, heavier than fear, heavier than reason. I hovered there, trembling on the edge of something irreversible.
I wanted the suffocation.
I was afraid of loving it.
And that terrified me more than the hole itself.
So I closed my eyes.
And I let go.
...
Warmth.
A sudden, gentle weight rested on my shoulder. The pressure vanished...
not ripped away, but softened, like waking from a dream you didn't realize you were inside.
I opened my eyes.
Light flooded my vision.
For a moment, I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. The darkness was gone, replaced by soft, steady brightness. Colors returned...
vivid, comforting, real. The walls were tiled in uneven patches of blue, yellow, and white. Familiar. Grounding.
I blinked.
I was in my room.
Beneath me, I felt the bed...
solid, warm.
The sheets, a gradient of blue fading into white, were slightly wrinkled where I had been lying. My fingers twitched against the fabric, as if testing its reality.
To the left, the brown door stood half-open. Beyond it, I could see the edge of a grey table, cluttered with indistinct shapes I didn't bother to focus on.
Everything was normal.
Too normal.
Slowly, I turned my head, trying to find the source of the warmth on my shoulder.
But before I could...
"So, do you still see those rotten holes?"
The voice was soft, familiar, threaded with quiet concern.
I froze.
I didn't need to turn to know who it was.
Aruka.
My older sister.
She stood behind me, her presence as steady as the warmth of her hand. I could picture her without even looking.
Blue hair tied neatly into a bun, pink eyes that always seemed to see more than they let on, and that gentle smile she wore even when she was worried.
"Earth to Neshra… are you still there?"
Her voice pulled me back, anchoring me to the moment. Only when her index finger lightly poked my shoulder did I realize how long I had been silent.
"Ohh,no…" I forced a small smile, though it felt fragile. "You really don't have to worry."
The lie slipped out too easily.
For a brief moment, there was silence.
Then—
Aruka wrapped her arms around me.
It wasn't sudden or tight...
just firm enough to remind me that she was there. Real. Warm. Breathing.
"Hey…" she murmured softly, her voice close to my ear. "I know you just lied to me. But that's okay."
Her hand rested against my back, steady and grounding.
"That's over now."
Something in me cracked.
The tension I hadn't realized I was holding drained away, replaced by a quiet exhaustion. I let my head fall against her shoulder, the softness of her presence chasing away the lingering shadow of that hole.
Her warmth was different.
It didn't suffocate.
It didn't demand.
It simply was.
And for the first time since the rustling began, I could breathe without thinking about it.
Slowly, we settled back onto the bed, the sheets wrapping around us in quiet comfort. The room remained softly lit, the world stable again.
But even as my eyes grew heavy, a thought lingered at the edge of my mind...
The memory of that hole.
Of the pressure.
Of the strange, dangerous comfort it had offered.
And the unsettling question it left behind:
What if it wasn't gone?
I tightened my grip on Aruka slightly, just enough to reassure myself.
For now—
I chose warmth over darkness.
And together, we drifted into sleep.