The air in the room was always thick, carrying that strange mix of bleach, cigarette smoke, and something unnameable that clung to the curtains. The sheets- wrinkled and suspicious- would crackle under my fingertips as I peeled them back, scanning for crawling shadows that might lurk within the folds. The room's only window was always covered with sheets, the heavy drapes pulled tight with no light shining through, swallowing the sun so nothing from the outside world could slip in.
There was always a book in the drawer. Cold and dust when touched, like it had been waiting for someone far more desperate than me, Opening that drawer felt like stepping into someone else's ghost, like the walls themselves whispered of those who never walked out. My chest would tighten, a sharp ripple of unease running down my spine, as if the room itself knew stories I didn't want to hear.
The bed springs groaned with every shift, a hallow metal cry echoing in the silence. The carpet beneath my feet was stiff, brittle in patches, as though countless nights of fear and sweat had seeped into it and stayed. Sometimes I'd turn the pages of that drawer book, not to read but to feel the thin, fragile paper between my fingers. It became a hiding place- the pages swallowing tiny shards of my world, needles glinting like secrets pressed between scripture- thin leaves.
There was no concept of time there. Only the low hum of the broken air conditioner, spitting out air that was too cold or too warm, never right. The mirror, cracked in the corner, always seemed to look back with something that wasn't my reflection. I didn't need comfort from a place like that- only stillness, only the quiet hum beneath my veins. As long as I had that, the room could have been anywhere, and it wouldn't have mattered.
d.n xx
@versesbyaaliyah
