> "Some people survive by forgetting.
Others survive by remembering in softer tones."
---
I woke up to the sound of silence.
Not absence.
Just… completion.
Like a song that ended on the right note,
without needing a final chord.
For the first time,
I didn't feel the need to fill the quiet with his name.
---
The light was warm.
Not harsh.
My skin no longer flinched when it touched the world.
The room — still windowless, doorless, infinite —
had begun to feel less like a cage
and more like space.
---
I stood up.
My feet didn't hurt anymore.
My body didn't scream.
It whispered.
Not "come back,"
but "go forward."
---
There was a piano in the corner.
The same one from every hallucination.
The same one I used to avoid touching —
afraid that if I played it without him,
the sound would betray me.
I sat in front of it.
Placed my fingers on the keys.
---
> A minor.
It hummed like an old friend.
Not bright. Not sad.
Just present.
I began to play.
---
Not a song.
Not yet.
Just a sequence.
A feeling.
G — B — F#m — A
Something soft.
Something unsure.
---
And then I whispered into the mic:
> "This isn't a song.
It's a survival."
---
I wrote the title down.
Track 0: What Survives After the Silence Ends
It wasn't for release.
It wasn't for charts.
It was mine.
---
Later that day — or maybe later in the dream,
I found a box outside the room.
Labeled in someone else's handwriting:
> "Unsent Letters"
Inside:
Dozens of folded notes,
Napkins with lyrics,
Coffee receipts with initials,
Pages torn from journals.
All addressed to him.
None mailed.
---
I picked one at random.
Letter #12 – Unsigned
> "Today, I laughed at something without thinking of telling you.
I think that's progress.
Or treason.
I'm still deciding."
---
Letter #19 – Smudged
> "You used to call me your quiet.
But I was never quiet.
I was just trying not to make the noise that would scare you away."
---
I burned them.
Not in anger.
In ritual.
The ashes floated upward
and turned into faint piano notes.
As if the words had become music.
---
I walked to the mirror.
Still cracked.
Still uncertain.
But this time,
the reflection didn't look like a stranger.
It looked tired.
Alive.
And very, very mine.
---
She smiled.
And said nothing.
And that,
for once,
was enough.
---
Therapy Log #17 – Fabricated or Recovered
> Dr. (invisible): "Do you still dream of him?"
Patient: "Yes."
Dr: "And do you still wake up missing him?"
Patient: "No."
Dr: "Why not?"
Patient: "Because I bring the parts I miss into the day. And I leave the rest behind."
---
The hunger didn't return.
The hallucinations faded like background radio static.
Not erased.
Not defeated.
Just… softened.
Like they understood
I didn't need them anymore
to feel alive.
---
I went to the window that wasn't there.
Opened it anyway.
Let the metaphor breathe.
Outside: nothing but sky.
And soundless color.
Blue.
Not sadness —
But beginning.
---
I sat down again.
Wrote.
Not lyrics.
Just… truth.
---
> "I'm not free because I let go.
I'm free because I let myself remember
without re-entering the fire."
---
> "He was a season.
A hurricane.
A silence I mistook for peace."
---
> "But now —
I am the echo that learned to sing back."
---
And then,
from somewhere inside the room,
a screen turned on.
A small one.
Old. Grainy.
It played a loop of me —
from months ago —
singing on that very first stage.
His hands on the guitar.
My voice breaking through the dark.
The crowd invisible.
The spotlight too bright.
But in the corner of the screen,
a caption:
> "This was not the peak.
Just the start."
---
I turned the screen off.
Closed my eyes.
Imagined his voice.
Not as a wound.
As a note I could sing without pain.
---
Then I recorded again.
This time —
for the world.
A new track.
No title.
No message.
Just sound.
Rough.
Real.
Mended at the seams.
---
The screen flickered back on.
This time, no video.
Just one sentence:
> "He's proud of you."
I smiled.
And didn't cry.
Because I finally understood:
That message wasn't from him.
It was from me.
---
I left the studio.
Closed the invisible door behind me.
And walked barefoot into the silence.
Not to escape it.
But to write into it.
---
Not an ending.
Just the moment after.