The rain stopped,
but the world kept dripping.
Every gutter, every tree, every wire —
tiny metronomes marking something we didn't understand.
Hana said she'd found another lead.
A place that used to screen propaganda reels during the flood years.
Locals called it Ratcha Light,
but the building itself hadn't lit up in decades.
We went after dusk,
when the frogs quieted down and the sky turned to thin milk.
The cinema squatted behind a line of tamarind trees.
A cracked marquee still clung to the roof,
letters half-rotted: NOW SHOWING : nothing.
We forced the door.
Inside smelled like wet velvet and electricity.
Rows of seats sagged inward as if pulled toward the stage.
My flashlight beam caught dust suspended mid-air —
not falling, not rising.
Just hanging there,
like it didn't know which way time was supposed to move.
Hana unpacked the recorder, her movements small and deliberate.
She placed it on the stage beside the dead projector.
"Ten minutes," she said.
"Then we listen."
I nodded, sat near the aisle.
The dark pressed close,
the kind of dark that changes your breathing.
The recorder's red light blinked.
Once every four seconds.
Same rhythm as the tower's pulse.
At first: nothing.
Just the sound of our shoes flexing and the long inhale of a building that hadn't exhaled in years.
Then, somewhere in the seats behind us —
a shuffle.
We turned at the same time.
Empty rows.
But the movement kept repeating —
half a second late, like a playback glitch.
I blinked.
In the brief darkness between blinks,
the seats seemed fuller.
The recorder clicked twice.
The red light froze solid.
Then came a voice.
Soft.
Close.
Female, but stretched thin —
like tape playing at the wrong speed.
"Why are you here?"
The voice repeated itself a moment later,
same words,
same tone,
but delayed,
as if the room were remembering it instead of producing it.
Hana whispered, "You heard that?"
I said yes,
but my voice reached her half a second late.
I saw the confusion on her face before I realized I'd spoken.
Something flickered on the projector wall.
Not light — reflection.
Our silhouettes, perfectly still.
Then mine twitched.
Just mine.
A small jerk of the head,
out of sync with my body.
I tried to move again —
and the reflection hesitated,
like it was waiting for permission.
Hana caught it too.
Her breath sharpened.
"Koy… stop."
"I already did."
But on the wall, I was still turning.
The recorder's speaker began humming.
Not mechanical — human.
A voice dragging air through a half-closed throat.
It built until the whole room felt like it was vibrating under our skin.
The seats started moving,
rows breathing in unison,
fabric stretching and sighing.
Hana grabbed the recorder.
"Let's go," she said.
Her voice shook, split —
half in front of me, half lagging behind.
We ran out to the hallway.
Our footsteps echoed wrong —
each step followed by another, lighter one,
like something imitating us half a beat late.
When we reached the exit, the metal door was closed.
We'd left it open.
I pulled; it didn't move.
On the other side,
someone pulled back.
I let go.
The door stayed still.
We listened.
The chanting started again.
Low, steady,
coming from both sides of the door at once.
We didn't speak on the ride home.
The rain began again,
a thin curtain hissing against the windshield.
When we finally stopped by the canal,
Hana turned to me.
"You didn't look right in there," she said.
"On the wall, I mean."
"I was scared."
"No. You were late."
Back at my room,
I replayed the tape.
At 3:12,
the voice whispered the question again.
At 3:13,
my own voice answered.
Not on purpose.
Not in memory.
Just — there.
"Because I never left."
The sentence ends with the sound of water dripping,
slow and exact,
in the rhythm of breath trying to catch up to itself.
Then silence.
Then the faint, delayed sound
of my own chair scraping the floor —
still moving long after I'd stopped.
(End of Chapter 6 — "Reflections,"