The silent silhouette of my question wandered between the ramparts like a ghost.
The people standing before me were not much different from ghosts anyway.
The man at the front line, whose lips seemed sealed, finally spoke.
"Do you want to change the balance?"
He ran a hand through his hair and lowered his gaze to the ground. I froze, unable to dare look at the others. I pressed my lips tightly together. At his words, they too immediately dropped their blank stares to the ground. It was clear he was the group leader.
"No, I… I don't intend to change anything."
I trembled as if standing before a judge I could never defend myself against.
"Really, nothing at all?"
I froze at the depth of his question and swallowed painfully.
"I want to regain my health," I said, lowering my head shyly.
"And… won't I meet you?"
My question hung in the air.
Hesitantly, I asked, "Why aren't you speaking?" and stopped examining them.
In that moment of silence, the group leader took another step closer and spoke:
"If you mind your own business, it will be…"
He paused.
"…much better for you."
He cast a brief glance at the group.
Everyone continued walking like soldiers in a military unit.
Within seconds, the crowd had already left me behind with a harsh indifference.
The fear of failing my duty enveloped me. I no longer felt any urge to understand why they were running or why they had not met me.
With timid steps, I turned my head over my shoulder and looked at the group moving away. They were no longer running; they were walking. I didn't know what to do. My eyes filled with tears. Inside me, just like outside, I felt no desire toward any decision. No choice created a sense of "this is better" in my current state.
As I collapsed wearily by the edge of the rampart wall, my knees touched the stones on the ground. The emptiness on my ring finger caught my eye once again. My husband as he waited for me, or the version of him I imagined when I entered the mechanism, played before my eyes like a film frame. I suffered so intensely that I was aware of the blood flowing from my lips. With the metallic taste touching my tongue, I cried without holding back my sobs. My voice echoed in the void.
My head… lifted so high that I saw a seagull gliding across the sky.
That tiny opening felt like a small smile carved into the strength of the towering walls.
After a few minutes of surrender, I stood up with support from the wall and brushed the dust off my pants. The stones on the ground were laid in square shapes, each with sides wide enough for at least a human waist to fit through. Treating it like a game, I walked by placing my feet exactly at the center of each stone. Perhaps here I could discover what I was truly meant to do.
Just as I was about to move with conviction, I remembered my duty:
Meet the other patients.
I looked at the straight road stretching out before me. Even as I struggled to carry myself, I began to walk. For a while, I tried to escape the coldness of the walls, the paving stones beneath my feet, and the unfamiliarity I felt toward myself through my steps.
After counting eighty meters in my own way, I stopped for a moment to catch my breath. There was no one in sight at the end of the road. As I counted the two-hundredth meter, I encountered nothing but emptiness again. When I had walked over a hundred meters more, I was left in shock and fear.
My heart was pounding in terror, struggling to pump blood through my body.
When I lifted my head meters upward once more, darkness had fallen.
Despite walking such a distance, nothing had happened.
This… what did all of this mean?
When I gave up and turned back, my back was against the wall, my exhausted hands frozen numb.
Walking was necessary.
But if I didn't know where walking would lead, what was the point of walking at all?
I sat down on the ground again. I thought of the woman in the room where I had first been confined. I replayed her words in my mind, one by one.
I had come here to heal.
I had come to enjoy life again, as I once had years ago.
I had come to finally rid myself of antidepressants.
So then…
Why were there no doctors, no medications, no therapy sessions?
Why were these people drifting around like garments, with their weak, neglected, and pale souls?
Fatigue overtook my body. Without realizing it, I collapsed to the ground.
After drifting for a while between sleep and wakefulness, I woke up to a sound. The moment I opened my eyes, I saw four people in front of me. The image was blurry… very blurry. Faces intertwined and passed through one another. In fear, I pressed my hand against the ground and tried to get up, but two elbows were pinning my hair to the floor. Someone had collapsed onto my legs as well.
I was breathing rapidly.
What were they trying to do to me?