Soft Thing

I woke to the sound of breathing.

For several seconds, I lay perfectly still, staring at the ceiling.

A crack ran through the plaster above me. Sunlight filtered through blinds somewhere nearby, carving pale stripes across the room. Dust drifted lazily through the light.

Everything looked familiar. Nothing felt familiar.

My heart hammered in my chest. The sound seemed strangely distant. As though it belonged to someone else.

A thought surfaced.

Who is it beating for?

The question hit me with such force that I sat upright. The room tilted. Not physically.

Something deeper.

It felt as though reality had shifted while I slept and failed to settle back into place.

I looked around.

There was a bed beneath me. A nightstand. A window. A door. I knew what those things were. But the knowledge felt mechanical, disconnected from meaning. I knew the words. I knew the categories. Yet I couldn't understand what any of them had to do with me.

Panic crawled up my throat.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Think.

Think of something real.

A face surfaced immediately. Red hair. Blue eyes. A smile that pulled at something deep inside my chest.

Relief flooded through me. Someone. I knew someone.

The certainty arrived before the memory. I knew him. Not casually. Not distantly. The sight of him carried weight. History. The kind of familiarity that settles into your bones and becomes part of you.

For one brief moment, I could breathe.

Then another thought slipped in.

Who is he?

The relief evaporated. I reached for a name and found nothing. Not even the shape of one. The face remained vivid, but everything attached to it had been hollowed out.

Where did we meet?

Nothing.

What did his voice sound like?

Nothing.

Had he ever spoken my name? I couldn't even remember my own. The panic returned twice as strong.

Another memory surfaced.

A girl. Dimples. The sound of laughter. Warmth.

For a fleeting second, I felt the ghost of happiness. The feeling of belonging somewhere. Of being understood.

Then doubt crept in.

Did I know her? Or did I only want to?

The distinction suddenly felt important.

My mind kept producing people without explanations. Faces without names. Attachments without proof.

I pressed my palms against my eyes.

No.

These people mattered. I knew they mattered.

Didn't I?

The certainty felt real. But so had every dream I'd ever woken from.

A new fear unfurled inside me.

What if my brain was manufacturing them?

What if it had discovered a hole where my life should be and was desperately trying to fill it?

The redhead. The girl with dimples.

Maybe they weren't memories at all. Maybe they were wishes.

The thought hit me so hard I nearly gagged.

And if they were real, another possibility waited beneath it.

Did they know me?

I knew nothing about them except the desperate certainty that I wanted them. Needed them. Needed them to tell me who I was.

But what if I found them? What if I stood in front of them and asked for my name? Would recognition spark in their eyes? Or would they stare at me the way you stare at a stranger who has mistaken you for someone else?

The thought hollowed me out.

I wasn't afraid of being alone. I was afraid I had always been alone.

My eyes darted around the room until they landed on a black rectangle resting on the nightstand.

Relief surged through me. I knew that object. It mattered.

I lunged for it. The surface lit beneath my fingers.

Symbols appeared. Words. Numbers. Information.

I stared at it.

Nothing.

I could read the words. That wasn't the problem.

The problem was that they meant nothing.

The object belonged to me. I knew that with absolute certainty. I knew I was supposed to understand it. Use it.

But how?

The knowledge hovered just beyond reach. My thumb brushed the surface. The screen changed.

More symbols appeared.

Rows of names. At least, I thought they were names.

One of them triggered something. A flash of red hair.

My chest tightened. Him. I needed him.

Why? I didn't know.

The certainty came first. The explanation never followed.

My finger hovered over the name. Could I call him?

The question immediately fractured into others.

Would he answer? Did he know me? Had he ever known me? Was this even his name?

For all I knew, my mind had attached desperation to a random collection of letters and called it memory.

My hand began to shake.

What if he answered and asked who I was? The thought struck with devastating clarity.

Because I didn't know.

Not my name. Not his. Not hers. Not anyone's.

The certainty that I wanted him suddenly felt less like comfort and more like madness.

A new thought surfaced.

The blue door.

Relief flooded through me.

There. That was it. The door.

If I could find it, everything would make sense.

The certainty was absolute.

The door was blue.

No. Green.

The color shifted the moment I tried to focus on it.

Blue.

Green.

Blue.

Green.

Yet the feeling remained unchanged. I needed to get there.

The realization sent me scrambling toward the edge of the bed before I froze.

How?

Somewhere outside.

I knew that. I knew it belonged to me. I knew I had used it countless times.

The image appeared immediately. Glass. Metal. Wheels.

Comfort lasted exactly one second.

How do you make it move?

I stared into space.

There was a wheel.

Pedals.

A key.

Or maybe a button.

The details floated through my mind like puzzle pieces from different boxes.

Nothing connected.

I could picture myself.

Sitting inside it. I could picture roads sliding past the windows. I could picture arriving somewhere.

But the process itself had vanished.

The blue door waited somewhere beyond the walls of the room.

I knew it. Yet I had no idea how to reach it. No idea where it was. No idea if it existed at all.

I closed my eyes and tried to picture it again. The house shifted every time I reached for it. Windows moved. The shape changed. The porch appeared and disappeared. Yet the feeling never changed.

Home.

The word arrived uninvited. Not the house. Not the door.

Home.

Tears blurred my vision. Because I suddenly realized I didn't know whether I was trying to remember a place. Or invent one.

The room had gone silent. Only then did I realize there had been a humming before. Now it was gone. The absence felt wrong.

Predatory.

Like standing in a forest and suddenly noticing every bird has stopped singing.

I looked toward the corners. Nothing stood there. Nothing moved. Yet the room felt aware of me.

Waiting.

A soft weight landed beside me. I flinched so violently I nearly dropped the smooth black square.

A small shape stood on the bed. Gray fur. Bright eyes. Warm. Alive.

I knew what it was. At least I thought I did. The word hovered somewhere beyond reach.

The creature stepped closer and pressed itself against my arm. Its body vibrated with a low rhythmic sound.

Comfort. The feeling arrived before understanding. For the first time since waking, something felt real.

I reached out. It touched me back. The simple certainty of contact almost made me cry.

Then the vibration stopped. The creature froze. Its attention shifted past me.

Toward the floor. A low sound emerged from its throat.

Warning.

I knew that sound. I didn't know how.

But I knew.

The dread hit instantly. My gaze followed its. The hardwood floor stretched beneath the bed. Ordinary.

Except it wasn't.

Something about it felt wrong. Not damaged. Not unstable.

Wrong.

As though it were pretending to be a floor. A creak echoed through the room.

Long.

Slow.

The sound of weight shifting. Not on the floor.

Inside it.

Every instinct I possessed screamed the same warning.

Don't touch it.

My feet dangled inches above the wood. I stared downward. The gaps between the boards seemed darker than before.

Deeper. Bottomless.

The creature backed away.

Still watching.

Still warning.

Then I saw movement. Far beneath the polished surface.

A pale face drifted through impossible darkness.

Human.

Terrified.

Familiar.

The figure slammed both hands against the underside of the floorboards.

The wood shuddered.

I recoiled.

Its mouth opened in a silent scream.

The seams between the boards widened.

Slowly.

Like lips beginning to part.

Darkness breathed from the opening.

Patient.

Hungry.

Waiting.

The creature bolted from the bed and vanished through the door.

I was alone.

And suddenly a thought occurred to me.

What if the redhead wasn't a memory?

What if the girl with dimples wasn't either?

What if they were real?

What if they were searching for me right now?

The floor opened another inch.

The thing beneath it smiled.

I still don't know my name.

But I know why I haven't stepped down.

Because whatever is waiting below already does.

And it wants it back.