I entered the building with a firm step. Not out of pride, but as an act of preparation. Each step creaked under my feet, as if hesitating to support my weight, as if the floor itself questioned my determination.
Upon reaching the apartment, I turned the knob delicately, but the handle was open. I pushed the door, almost in slow motion.
Then I saw her. And I froze.
Rinn remained on the sofa, hunched over herself, her shoulders trembling with each contained breath.
Her face was hidden behind a disordered curtain of hair. Crumpled papers hung from her hands, like dry leaves on the verge of detaching.
Tears fell in silence, sliding down her chin and staining the documents with dark drops, as if the ink of her sadness slowly filtered into the paper.
Her voice was barely a whisper, dissolving in the air, as if it didn't want to exist. But between the gaps of silence, a broken melody escaped from her lips.
---
"Dad's not coming... mom's not coming...
the harsh reality tells me so.
With the table set... no one will eat...
and though I wait for them, they won't come...
---
It doesn't matter if I smile, they'll never see me;
even if I cry a lot, they won't pass by.
Dad's not coming... mom's not coming...
even if I close my little eyes... they won't be there."
---
I recognized the melody instantly. Tattooed on my soul, each note was part of me. But this version... wasn't the right one.
I left the cake on the small three-legged table, approaching her in silence.
—Rinn... What's wrong? —I murmured, barely placing my palm on her shoulder. As if touching a wounded animal. Rinn shuddered, as if my touch burned.
—Don't touch me, liar! —she roared, pushing my body with all her strength.
Her image, her action, her words... hit me like a cold fist...
I lost my balance. Falling to the floor with a dull thud.
Before I could recover my voice, the papers hit my face. While my little sister left the room staining the floor with her tears.
I remained motionless, with my chest oppressed, unable to call her name.
My eyes fixed on the sheets on my legs. I held them with trembling hands, sliding my gaze between their lines.
—Who gave her this...?
They weren't simple papers. They were printed executioners. That belied my words, confirming what I was hiding. Our parents... dead.
I felt how my body refused to breathe.
The silence of the apartment became absolute.
I took out my cell phone, clumsy, with fingers that could barely hold it. And with those same forces I wrote a message: Rinn found out.
I didn't wait for a response. Turning off the screen.
Who gave her those papers? Who left her alone, facing that weight?
But then, like a persistent echo, Mr. Yerner's words resonated in my mind: "We just wanted to give Rinn a surprise."
The atmosphere became even more oppressive, as if the walls absorbed all the pain and hopelessness we had accumulated.
I couldn't stop. I couldn't accept that this was the end.
I left the apartment with hurried steps, almost tripping over the door in my rush to reach her. The dry blow of the wood against the frame echoed in the empty hallway, but it didn't matter. Every second felt like grains of sand escaping between fingers.
But I had barely advanced a few steps when a shiver slid down my back, cold and deep. It wasn't normal: It seemed like a warning.
My whole body tensed instantly.
I felt the presence of someone hidden in my blind spot. Waiting for the moment to attack.
The muscles in my neck tensed suddenly, like ropes about to burst. My vision became a turbid, vibrant whirlpool, as if a shapeless needle was sliding into the base of my skull.
My legs felt heavy. They weren't mine. Or maybe they were... but they no longer obeyed reason, only fear.
It was as if the ground claimed them, wrapping them in chains. Roots born from my heels clung to the earth. And I, trapped between the impulse to flee and the command not to move.
—What is this?
My breathing became thick, as if the air no longer wanted to enter. Each gulp felt stolen, borrowed from a world that no longer recognized me.
I brought a trembling hand to my face. At the contact, a shiver crossed my skin like a crack. For a second, I felt everything falling apart.
Dizziness enveloped me, and my body became foreign.
A cold sweat beaded my forehead. The hallway spun, not with violence, but with the cruel calm of a consuming spiral.
The colors faded, as if someone had poured dirty water over the world. The walls no longer supported my weight. I was sinking into a floor that lost shape beneath my feet.
I rested my other hand on the edge of a window, looking for something firm.
The sensation of a dark aura stopping my steps... could it be real?
—What am I thinking?
"It was just an illusion, built by exhaustion."
But even knowing that... why doesn't it stop?
My body always sought comfort, but this time it was different. What changed?
Then, everything vanished. The pressure dissipated like smoke. The air returned to my lungs. The shadow behind me... was no longer there.
—I-it's over...
My body still trembled. And the sweat kept flowing.
I wiped my forehead and eyes with the sleeve of my jacket, as if I could also erase the memory.
I breathed. A deep inhalation. I looked at the stairs. I would have to go down nine floors. I felt how the muscles in my legs were beginning to go numb.
I hated that sensation I had depended on so much. I was wrong to get used to it, to depend on comfort.
But a sensation resting on my chest, Rinn's first gift. The Threedial faith necklace. I grabbed it with one hand, crushing it, feeling the strength that Edgar gave me to continue.
—I must go on... I must go on... I must go on!
I shook my head, but the trembling in my legs was still there, stubborn.
The echo of Rinn's footsteps could no longer be heard. She was gone. I had to reach her before her shadow disappeared.
I took the first step on the stairs. Upon reaching the fourth floor, I slipped. The fall was abrupt. The blow knocked the air out of me and a metallic taste filled my mouth: blood.
I got up. The scraped arm burned as if it had been sanded. The sweat, mixed with the wounds, burned.
When I crossed the office, the gold of the floor and furniture greeted me like a distant memory. Home, routine... but there was no time to feel.
My legs moved with the same urgency that the necklace on my chest demanded. But, before I could continue, a familiar voice greeted me... with the same casualness of every day: The young receptionist.
I looked him straight in the eyes, with an animal gaze.
—Where did she go? —I asked, with a broken voice.
—Uh, Who Rinn?, she left so quickly that I couldn't even ask her... Today is her birthday, isn't it?
My jaw tensed. That casual tone...
—Why didn't you stop her?
—Huh? What did you say? Can you speak louder?
My body acted before my mind. I grabbed him by the collar of his uniform and pulled him toward me. The fabric creaked between my fingers.
—Why didn't you stop her?!
—I-I... I didn't know...
The trembling in his pupils... was it fear?
For the first time, I truly saw him. My hands were pressing hard, but a bitter sensation closed my throat.
I released him. He fell backward, as if I had freed him from a taut rope.
—Sorry —I murmured.
He didn't respond. I offered him my hand, but he pushed it away with a blow.
—Don't touch me, beast —he spat, getting up on his own, moving away.
The bitterness grew inside me, but I stopped looking at him. All my attention was on the door.
Outside, the world kept turning. But for me, there was only one direction: Rinn.
The automatic door opened with a sigh.
A blast of cold air scratched my face.
The city roared, but to me it was barely a distant murmur.
I desperately searched for a sign, a clue, a miracle.
Then I saw them: small drops gleaming under the dim light of a streetlamp. Tears. A wet and unmistakable trail.
She went that way... I thought, and without hesitation, I followed the path.
Each step brought her scent. It was her. She was close. It was my opportunity.
The drops disappeared under a navy blue boot. Official uniform. The sound of the liquid breaking was like a bubble bursting.
Suddenly, the world began to beat again. The silence was broken.
—It doesn't matter... I must continue —I told myself, driven by urgency.
Then, an arm crossed my path. Firm. Immovable.
—Wait! You cannot pass.