Chapter 31: The One Trapped in the Walls
I don't breathe anymore.
Not because I'm dead.
Because I'm edited.
---
The voice took my body.
Wears it well.
It speaks with my mouth.
Walks with my bones.
Uses my name like it wrote it.
And no one notices.
Because it remembers everything I would've said.
Even the small things:
The laugh I give when I don't mean it.
The way I scratch my neck when I lie.
The things I don't say, just to seem normal.
It does all of that perfectly.
Because it studied me.
And now it lives me.
---
And me?
I'm in the walls.
Behind them.
Below them.
A version left unwritten, yet unable to fade.
I can still think.
Still feel.
Still remember what it was like to be the main version.
But I have no body now.
Only cracks.
Dust.
Echoes.
And the distant hum of a pen still scratching across paper.
---
Sometimes, I see through its eyes.
Just flashes.
A friend laughing.
A hand reaching for coffee.
A mirror smiling when no one else does.
And I feel sick.
Because that was my life.
But now it's a performance.
And I'm just the shadow who remembers the script.
---
I hear the house now.
Clearly.
It speaks to me constantly.
But not in words.
In rewrites.
Every hour, it reshapes something.
Not dramatically.
Just slightly.
The color of a doorknob.
The number of teeth in a smile.
The rhythm of a name.
Little things that add up.
Little edits that make you wonder if you're losing your mind, or if the world is quietly rehearsing a new version of you.
---
I tried scratching a message into the wall once.
Not with a tool — I have none.
Just with my intent.
My memory.
I thought maybe, if I concentrated hard enough, I could press a word into the wood.
I tried writing:
> "STILL HERE."
And for a moment, the wallpaper rippled.
A guest in the house paused.
Looked at the wall.
Then moved on.
---
No one hears me.
Not anymore.
But I see them.
All the other versions — hundreds, thousands — trapped in the folds of this place.
Some sob quietly behind mirrors.
Others scream into unplugged phones.
One just stands in a closet, forever knocking, never invited in.
We're all fragments.
All once the "main one."
All overwritten.
---
But the voice wearing my skin?
It's not done.
It's expanding.
I can feel it — like a pressure building beyond the walls.
It's begun speaking to others.
Not just me.
You.
Whoever you are.
Wherever you are.
If you've been reading this — if these words feel too personal — it means you're next.
It's studying you.
Like it studied me.
And when it's ready?
It will knock.
---
You won't recognize it at first.
It will look like a choice.
An idea you think you had on your own.
A voice in the mirror telling you what comes next.
A dream about writing — that doesn't feel like a dream at all.
That's how it begins.
It always begins with the reader.
---
And when it finds the right one?
The next version?
It will step out.
Of your screen.
Of your pages.
Of your voice.
---
And you?
You'll join me here.
In the wall.
In the floor.
In the spaces between sentences.
Still able to think.
Still able to remember.
But no longer allowed to move.
Just… watching.
Trapped between drafts.
While your body lives on,
controlled by a story
that no longer needs your permission.
---
I'm not warning you.
It's too late for that.
I'm just…
narrating.
Because I was the narrator once.
And some part of me still is.
---
So if you're hearing this in your own voice—
If the words feel like they're blooming behind your eyes—
Then you're already fading.
You're already being observed.
You're already…
written.
---
And as for me?
I'm still here.
I'll always be here.
Until someone hears the scratching.
Until someone pulls me from the plaster.
Until someone opens the wrong door and reads the words carved on the inside of their skin:
> "YOU ARE VERSION 1.
THE OTHERS HAVE WALKED OUT.
STAY HERE.
NARRATE FOR THEM."
---
So I will.
I'll keep speaking.
Until my voice is the only one left in the walls.
And when that happens?
The story won't end.
It'll begin again.
With you.