The Room That Wasn’t There(…)

"Not all missing places are lost. Some are waiting to be found by the version of you that left them behind."

⸻

I used to think madness was something loud.

Like a sudden snap—plates breaking, voices shouting, windows shattering under the weight of something too human to name.

But that's not how it happens.

Madness is quieter than you'd ever expect.

It arrives like a memory that won't introduce itself.

A song you've never heard that still knows every word you've forgotten.

It hides in soft corners. In unassuming hallways.

In things that should not change—but do.

⸻

The building I live in has four floors. And then, according to the elevator panel, it skips politely to six.

A missing floor. No apology. No explanation.

Just 1, 2, 3, 4…

Then 6.

I used to think it was a mistake—an architectural quirk.

One of those quiet absences you learn to ignore, the way you learn to ignore a dream the second your alarm rings.

But today…

Today, I woke with chalk dust in my hands.

⸻

My fingers were coated in a thin white film, as if I'd clawed my way through a ghost made of concrete and forgotten walls.

There were red scratches lining my wrists—faint but fresh.

Like I'd been holding on to something that didn't want to be held.

The air in my room felt… unnatural. Like it had been holding its breath while I slept. Like it had seen something I wasn't meant to know.

Then I saw it.

On the wall, faint and trembling in the morning light, a number was scrawled in white:

5.5

It wasn't a clue.

It was a memory.

Or worse—an address I'd once promised never to return to.

⸻

Pieces came back in jagged flashes.

A half-remembered hallway.

Floorboards creaking like they hadn't finished being built.

Rain hovering midair outside the windows, unmoving, waiting for time to start again.

And a voice—not angry, not loud—just heartbreakingly sure:

"You left her there."

⸻

By afternoon, I found myself standing at the elevator.

No plan. No purpose.

Just instinct.

The panel blinked at me like it had been waiting for me to ask the right question.

I pressed both 5 and 6 at the same time.

Not logic.

Not curiosity.

Just… faith.

The elevator jolted. A tremor ran through its bones like it had remembered something painful. Then it moved.

It stopped between floors.

And opened.

⸻

The hallway was long and dim, slanted slightly like a corridor trying to collapse back into dream.

Dust floated in the air like dandelions too tired to bloom.

And at the far end—a door.

Unmarked, except for a single inscription carved delicately into the wood:

5.5

I knew the number.

I didn't know the room.

But it knew me.

The doorknob was warm—flesh-warm.

Not like metal should be.

Like someone had just let go.

I turned it.

And stepped into something that had been waiting for years.

⸻

The room was small. Still.

A quiet that didn't feel like silence—more like reverence.

It smelled like childhood dust and weathered wood. Like a place once loved and abandoned mid-sentence.

And then I saw them—relics from a memory I hadn't granted myself:

• A snow globe, except instead of snow, it held sand that refused to fall.

• A music box, rotating backwards, notes playing in reverse like lullabies unsung.

• A book, lying open on a table. Every page ripped out—except the last.

I walked to it.

One word.

Again.

⸻

The far wall held a collage—

A constellation of Polaroids.

Dozens. Hundreds. Maybe more.

Each photo was of us.

Me and Elara.

Laughing on a rooftop.

Holding hands beside a lake.

Crying in a hospital hallway.

Memories that felt like someone else's life—but wore my face.

Then I saw one—dated tomorrow.

We were standing in this very room.

Me, looking away from the camera.

Her, gazing straight at me with the quiet ache of someone who already knows what you're about to forget.

I pulled one photo aside. Beneath it—charcoal markings scrawled into the wall like someone had carved them with grief instead of hands:

"She's not a ghost."

"You lived this before."

"You begged to forget."

"You promised to come back once it hurt less."

And then—

"If you found this room, it's already too late to save her."

⸻

A sound.

Soft, like fabric brushing fabric.

I turned.

And there she was.

Elara.

Not as she'd been in the dreams, or behind the glass, or in the static between moments.

This Elara… flickered.

A frame caught between realities.

There—but not.

She moved like an old film skipping beats.

Her mouth opened—but no sound escaped.

Still, I heard her.

In my chest.

In the place where memory used to sleep.

I stepped forward.

She reached out her hand—

And I reached back.

The moment we touched—

The world broke.

⸻

No falling. No crashing.

Just a quiet unraveling.

Like waking from a life you thought was yours.

I felt myself spiraling—through something that wasn't time and wasn't space, but memory.

Through her.

Through me.

⸻

I woke on my bedroom floor.

My mouth tasted of dust and absence.

The chalk was gone.

The scratches had faded.

The room was unchanged.

Except for one thing.

In my hand—

A single Polaroid.

The same one.

Tomorrow's photo.

Us.

Not smiling. Not crying. Just… waiting.

And on the back, in faint pencil, a sentence that read like a wound stitched into paper:

"This time, don't leave."