The weight of her body pushed the door open—the one that led into the small courtyard that served as an antechamber to the cloister. She still struggled to breathe through her nose, and she could barely regain sensation in her arms and hands.
Sunlight forced her to lower her head; her eyes couldn't endure it without feeling as though her corneas were burning.
The courtyard was empty, unlike the day she had arrived.
And yet, it was the same.
The fountain at its center still spilled water, filling the narrow channels that ran across the stone and fed a controlled irrigation system for the planters—though now, it served only to keep the earth damp.
And still, at the same time, it was an entirely different place.
She left the cloister at an unhurried pace.
She wasn't fleeing.
She didn't have anywhere to go, either.
She simply wanted to leave, and so she did.
None of those who had dragged her there tried to stop her. She walked away from the place, counting every second.
She wandered through the streets she had walked all her life.
For the first time, however, she truly enjoyed the silence—the peace of an untroubled walk. There was nothing to hear but herself: her footsteps and the whispered numbers.
The sun was sinking, far on the horizon, precisely where the concrete swallowed it at that time of day, taking every trace of natural light with it. The end of that day drew near—a day that would never be forgotten.
She would remember it forever, as she remembered so many others.
Instinctively, she reached for the wound in her chest.
There was no trace of it anymore, and yet the pain remained, like a ghost that refused to leave. Blood still seeped through the healed flesh.
Nausea rose in her throat when she felt her heart beating.
THUMP—THUMP.
A calm, steady rhythm—unaltered, just like her pace.
Each beat reminded her that she was alive.
That she was still alive.
That the wound hadn't stayed open long enough for them to tear it from her.
But every beat also reminded her of something else:
that heart did not belong to her.
It never had.
Without meaning to, she found herself on the main street.
The Avenue of Lights—the city's spine—named so because, for one reason or another, it was always illuminated. Its importance had done only one thing: gather nearly every shop and merchant stall along its sides. A perfect symbiosis. Its fame drew merchants like moths to a flame, and their stalls, in turn, sustained and intensified the very light that had attracted them.
Then night arrived.
It came wrapped in storm clouds so dark that neither the moon nor its light could be seen. And with the sun gone, and the moon hidden, she found herself walking down the longest street in the city in total darkness.
Any other day, hours before nightfall, every business would have lit its lamps, preserving the title that gave the avenue its name.
But today was not any other day.
Today, not a single light was on.
Today, every business and every home had come to the same silent agreement: to surrender, and grant victory to the dark.
Some shops still kept their doors open; the stalls still displayed their goods for potential customers.
But today there were no customers. No citizens.
Only her—walking and counting, paying none of it any particular mind.
Her feet ached. With every step, her legs protested. She had counted 18,543 seconds already, which meant her walk was nearing six hours.
And she still hadn't stopped.
She still hadn't left the city she despised so deeply.
The city that had cast her aside her entire life.
The city that, only hours earlier, had tried to kill her.
Her legs betrayed her. She stumbled over her own foot and fell onto the cold, unforgiving ground, covered by nothing but an old nightgown soaked in blood. The impact left her dazed for only a moment—compared to the beatings she had endured, it was nothing—but it was enough to make her lose her focus.
And she stopped counting.
The voices came at once, rushing into the brief crack of carelessness and weakness. They burst against her ears, rubbing into her skin the insults she had heard all her life. She clamped her hands over her ears, hard, but it didn't matter.
She could still hear them.
They thundered through her without mercy.
She shook and convulsed, begging for a single second of silence, tears threatening to spill—yet no matter how desperately she tried not to hear them, it was useless.
Then the memories came, flooding her fragile mind.
The nights she had slept on the streets—hungry, freezing, half-dead from cold. The days spent alone, enduring the stares and whispers of everyone who passed her by.
And then—mercifully, like a miracle—the one memory that held the second she had been counting slipped in among the rest.
Peace returned.
Silence.
She regained control, fighting back everything that tried to drag her under by resuming her count. She added the seconds she had lost—seconds she had been counting, even if she hadn't spoken them aloud.
She stood.
And walked again, as if nothing had happened.
She didn't get far.
She reached the edge of the city, encircled by its immense, thick wall—a symbol meant to inspire trust and safety, a defense against the dangers of the outside world. To her, it had always felt like a prison, one that kept her from seeing beyond.
And to make it worse: the enormous gate, the city's only entrance and exit, was shut tight.
She dropped to her knees, laughing and screaming at the top of her lungs.
How stupid she had been, thinking she could escape that damned city.
Her attempt at fleeing—ruined by a simple door she couldn't open, and that no one would open for her.
No one.
She kept screaming and laughing, not caring, not stopping, no matter the pain tearing at her throat. No one came to demand she be quiet. No one came out to see what was happening.
No one appeared.
And that only made her laugh and scream even harder.
24,772 seconds had passed since she started walking.
24,773 seconds since she left the cloister behind—and left behind what she had done there.
She could still feel it in the air: her ritual.
In a single second it had spread, reaching every corner of the world. And its effects had been undeniable from the very first heartbeat of that second—from the moment she left that room where they had tried to sacrifice her, completely empty now, and stepped into a courtyard just as empty.
She had done it.
She truly had.
She let herself scream, not caring about the noise she was making. Because no matter how loudly she shouted, no matter how far the wind might carry her declaration of victory, she couldn't disturb anyone.
No one would hear her.
Just as no one had been there to turn on the lights of the shops and homes.
Just as no one had been there to keep holding her down on that stretcher while the others prepared to open her chest.
She was alone—finally.
And not only in that city.
Her ritual had reached the whole world, leaving it without anyone.
Every living being—human, animal, or plant—was simply gone.
There would be no one left to hit her.
No one left to insult her.
No one left to take advantage of her, or fear her, or look at her with disgust.
Because there was no one else in the world but her.
At last, she was alone.
And at peace.
Tears spilled from her eyes, bringing with them a pain she didn't understand.
She was happy—she had finally gotten what she had always wanted. No one would ever hurt her again. She was crying from joy, or at least, that was what she wanted to believe.
But then…
Why did it feel like she had done something wrong?