Chapter 14:
died living.
He woke up with no sound in his head.
It was the first thing he noticed.
No inner voice.
No tired complaints. No thoughts echoing between sleep and waking.
Just silence.
Even his breath felt foreign.
He sat up.
Blankly.
No alarm had rung.
He looked at the time.
The screen showed numbers, but they meant nothing.
He couldn’t tell whether it was morning or night.
The light through the window was white, like static. No sun, no shadow. Just light without source.
He dressed himself out of habit.
Or something like it.
He put on the uniform.
But when he looked down at it, he wasn’t sure if it was really his. It smelled like someone else. The sleeves were a little too long.
Or maybe they were always that long.
He walked to school again.
Not because he chose to.
Just because his feet moved.
He passed people.
But saw no faces.
Not blurred — just blank.
Featureless.
Like the world had stopped rendering details.
Like the world didn’t care if he was paying attention anymore.
He reached the classroom.
Class 2-B.
The door was closed.
He slid it open.
And every desk was empty.
The whole room — abandoned.
Dust on the chalkboard.
Cobwebs on the windows.
He stepped inside.
The silence deepened.
It pressed on him like water.
He turned slowly.
And saw something written on the board.
Faint chalk lines.
Three words.
His name.
And underneath it—
“Wasn’t real.”
He stared at it.
Longer than he should have.
Not afraid.
Not surprised.
Just tired.
He tried to erase it.
But the chalk wouldn’t smudge.
His fingers passed through it like smoke.
He left the classroom.
Walked the halls.
Found the teachers’ room.
Empty.
He checked the mirror in the restroom.
No reflection.
Again.
Still.
Always.
He touched the glass.
It was cold.
But didn’t feel like glass anymore.
He whispered something.
He wasn’t sure what.
Maybe her name.
Maybe his.
But the sound didn’t come out.
He moved his lips, but no noise followed.
He tried again.
Nothing.
No voice.
No sound.
No self.
He stumbled backward, chest heaving.
But there was no panic.
Even panic requires a self.
And he wasn’t sure he had one anymore.
He clutched his head.
Tried to think.
Tried to find one memory — just one — that felt real.
A conversation.
A smell.
A laugh.
Something warm.
But every image came with a question mark.
Every voice ended in static.
Even her name was gone.
He mouthed syllables, but they didn’t make a word.
Didn’t make her.
Didn’t make him.
His knees hit the floor.
He didn’t cry.
He couldn’t.
Tears come from emotion.
And there was no one left to feel anything.
Just a shell, in an empty school, in a world that had quietly erased him.
He leaned his forehead against the tile.
And listened.
To nothing.
The last thought he remembered thinking — the last one that still felt like it belonged to him — was this:
“Maybe I never existed at all.”
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