I still remember that night.
The cold didn't come from the season, but from the walls of our room, soaking up hope like a sponge absorbs tears.
Maria and I—eight years old, small bodies, held breath—hid under a rickety desk pressed against the wall. Above us, a dim lamp flickered like a dying dream.
"Don't go out yet, Ray," Maria whispered, hugging her knees, shivering like the moon losing its light.
I hugged her, and she hugged me back.
We were the only protection we had.
The world outside our room—which should've been called home—felt more like a prison. There were no bars, but fear replaced them all. The sound of shattering plates and screaming voices became the background music of our lives.
We knew… we knew we couldn't live without them.
We knew we were trapped in small bodies not yet strong enough to survive on our own.
That night, we fell asleep holding each other. My ear pressed against Maria's back, listening to her heartbeat as if it was the only real thing left in the world.
---
A few years after that—Father died.
Death didn't come like a storm, but like fog. Quiet. Slow. Then gone, taking with it the only voice that never asked me to be perfect.
I didn't cry in front of anyone.
I learned to close my face like closing a window when it rains.
But when I was alone… tears fell soundlessly, without direction.
It was the only way my body knew how to stay alive.
Meanwhile, my mother—she smiled.
A smile I never understood.
"At least I don't have to argue with that idiot anymore," she said.
I didn't reply.
Because I knew, there's no use fighting a storm that always comes from inside your home.
But Maria—Maria grew like fire that had enough of being quiet.
She fought back.
Now my mother had a new enemy. One she gave birth to herself.
Maria stopped calling her "mother," not since her 13th birthday, when she heard her curse our dead father, saying he should rot in hell with all the other losers.
I said nothing.
I always said nothing.
Because ever since Father left, I decided to disconnect myself from the world.
---
9:14 in the morning.
That was the hour when everything truly ended.
Maria. A motorcycle. A wet road. Her head hitting the sidewalk.
Concussion.
Coma.
And the world became quieter than ever before.
The mother who once laughed loudly now sat crying on the kitchen stairs.
"It's my fault… This is all my fault…" she said.
But I couldn't hear her.
Her voice… no longer reached inside me.
I couldn't forgive. I couldn't look at her face. I couldn't call her "mother" anymore.
Her figure became a ghost I refused to acknowledge had ever lived.
Her laughter—once bright—slowly faded from my memory.
---
And when the room in my heart turned empty, I created another figure.
Someone softer. Warmer. A TV idol whose voice saved me one night when I almost swallowed every pill I had.
She smiled at everyone, and I pretended that her smile… was for me.
Just for one night.
And never again.
But that night was enough to begin a new illusion: a mother who wasn't real—but also couldn't hurt me.
---
And now, I'm here.
Walking down a hallway of time with no doors. Only walls of memory constantly dropping dust onto my breath.
I know you see me.
You whom I call friends.
I know you're watching me and trying to understand. But it's useless act. You can't understand the things that don't want to be understood. I'm afraid of being understood.
But let's end the pretending.
I'm insane.
I know that.
I don't need a diagnosis or medical notes to know that these voices, these faces, maybe everything—are just echoes from the empty spaces in my mind.
But listen to this…
Even madness can feel like home,
when the real world is hell.
———————
This room is too white.
As white as the possibilities that have already died.
I sit by the bedside—a metal chair with shaky legs touching the cold floor that froze the moment the news came at 9:14 in the morning, years ago. Since then, time has refused to move.
Maria lies still. Eyes closed like doors that were never opened again. Thin tubes dance slowly from her hands, merging into machines that sound more like ticking clocks than heartbeats.
I look at her face—still young.
Unchanged.
As if time nailed her in place while I… I keep walking through the same maze, every day, with steps growing farther from the world.
"It's Thursday today, Maria," I whisper, voice caught in something I can't quite call tears.
I take her cold fingers. They don't hold back—like always.
"Do you remember when we made a secret base out of cardboard and torn blankets behind the house? We called it the dream fortress—and all the shouting from our parents sounded like monster voices from stories."
I let out a small laugh. Fake. But better than silence that swallows everything.
"Back then… you said we should write our own story, so we could be happy even if the real world didn't give us the chance."
Silence.
I lower my head. Staring at the floor.
Then up—at the ceiling full of cracks, like my mind.
"Sometimes I wonder, Maria… maybe that's why I'm like this."
"Why I keep reliving the same day. Repeating time as if things could be fixed just by remembering them hard enough."
"As if… with enough effort… we could go back to that cardboard fort."
"I know it's insane," I say, a bitter smile forming. "But I keep repeating it, Maria. In dreams. In my thoughts. In every empty room that suddenly turns into the past. I repeat it. Even myself gets repeated… and it feels more real than reality."
I inhale deeply.
"But still, here you are. Still. And I know… I have to accept that time only moves one way."
"I'm just… not ready yet."
My fingers gently stroke hers.
"If you can hear me… at least know one thing."
"If I'm repeating everything… it's because I miss you. I miss us. Not the version of home that was burning… but the small version of us that laughed while drawing the future with broken crayons on the wall."
I turn, looking deeply at her face.
"And if you choose to leave… please… wait a little longer."
Tears fall. But I don't wipe them away.
Let them be part of this conversation.
A conversation between me and the past.
Or maybe a one-way conversation between me and Maria.