She wasn't there a moment ago.
He was sure of it.
The room hadn't changed. The desk still sat in the center, blank and inert. The ceiling still hovered at an unknowable height. But now—she was standing by the far wall.
Watching him.
She looked about his age, but something in her posture felt older. Like she'd been waiting longer than he'd been alive.
He stood slowly.
"Where did you come from?" he asked.
She tilted her head. "From outside the story."
The words meant nothing. But they struck something inside him. A small, shivering wire deep in the gut.
"Do you know where this is?"
She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
"No. But I remember pieces."
"Pieces of what?"
"Of you."
He stepped back, a hand on the edge of the desk.
"Do I… know you?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, she looked at him gently and asked, "What's the last thing you remember?"
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Tried again.
"There was... a sound," he said slowly. "A loud one. Like something cracking open. Then—dark. And I was—"
His hands lifted unconsciously to his throat.
"I was screaming."
The memory hit like ice water through glass.
"I couldn't breathe," he whispered. "I was—I think I was underground."
The air in the room thinned.
The girl's face stayed still.
"I don't remember how I got here," he added quickly, as if that would make it safer. "I just… I woke up here."
Her voice was quiet. "You always do."
He didn't hear her.
He was already shaking.
Something deeper than fear.A truth without a name.A memory still buried, but closer now.
The girl took a step forward.
"You'll forget that part soon," she said.
He looked up at her.
"What part?"
She reached out. Not to comfort. Just to steady.
"The part where you remembered."