"You're back."
He was waiting for me in the center of a vast, white void—a room without walls, stretching into an infinite nothingness.
A moment ago, I had been having dinner with Jennie. Now, I was here again, trapped in the blank space of my conscious mind.
Outside, the world continued its frantic pace, but for me, time had ground to a halt.
"Don't be confused," he said, his voice echoing.
"You will always find me here. After certain events, you must always return to me."
He sat with his chin resting in his hand, his gaze piercing through me as if I were transparent. I approached him and sat down, mirroring his position.
"There's nowhere left for me to run,"
"Do you really think I have a choice in this? I can't speak, and I can't move. I am a ghost witnessing the funeral of my own past."
I sighed and lay back against the cold, invisible floor, staring up at the empty expanse.
"In a way,"
"it feels like I'm finally resting. Those memories… they don't hurt me the way they used to. They don't make me feel anything at all. And I know that, in the end, you'll just pull me back here anyway."
I paused, a sudden ache in my chest.
"Does my real world even exist anymore? Or is this the only reality I have left?"
I miss my mother. I miss my grandmother.
He lay down beside me, turning his head to watch me.
"Think of this as an escape," he suggested softly.
"What am I escaping if I'm forced to relive the same days over and over?"
. "If you're a god, then you're a cruel one."
Silence fell between us, heavy and suffocating. He didn't look away. When he finally spoke, his voice broke, sounding like a man who had been holding back a lifetime of yearning.
"If I were a god…" he whispered, his voice trembling as if he were on the verge of tears.
"I would take you away from here. I would take you far from everything."
"To me you….."
His hand, as cold as ice, reached out. He touched my face with terrifying tenderness, as if I were made of the thinnest glass, and said: