I open my eyes, and as they settle on the ceiling silence crashes into me.
Not silence from outside. Outside, I can hear owls hooting, and the wind, and somewhere far outside, I can hear someone dragging something heavy across stone.
The silence I can hear is inside. Inside my head. It's so quiet that it feels foreign. For as long as I can remember, there's been a second breath beside mine. A second heartbeat, a second set of thoughts that lived beside my own like a cat winding between my ankles.
I never hated it, never fully understood it was possible, but I was glad it was. I knew he was there. Warm, familiar, and comforting, in some strange way I couldn't explain.
Now it's just…gone. I reach for him out of habit.
But there's nothing there, and the realization hits me hard. It's like trying to sit on a chair that's always been in your living room but slamming right into the ground…cause it's not there.
