I move from object to object, touching things as if that might trigger something. I flip through a few books at random. Mostly blank pages. Some writing. Nothing that stands out yet.
I try the door again. Still nothing.
The mirror pulls at my attention. I step in front of it and study myself more closely. Same clothes. Same blank expression. No hints. No writing on the glass. Just me, reflected back, as if the room is asking whether I recognize myself.
I don't.
Frustration builds quietly. I rub my face, run a hand through my hair, and pace the length of the room. Every second feels counted, even though I don't know how much time I actually have.
Then I noticed something wrong with the bed.
Not the bed itself, but the pillow.
I lift it.
There's a folded piece of paper underneath.
My heart jumps just a little as I unfold it. This has to matter. The placement alone feels intentional.
A poem.
> I of yesterday,
the you running through the days,
the me trying to connect the days,
searching for similarities, mistakes.
That's it. No title. No signature.
I read it again, slower this time. The words feel familiar in a way I can't explain, like they're brushing against something just out of reach.
"I of yesterday."
"The you running through the days."
"The me trying to connect the days."
Three versions. Past. Present. Something in between.
I sit on the edge of the bed, holding the paper, and glance around the room again. The books. The mirror. The photos. The door.
The poem doesn't tell me what to do.
It tells me how to look.
Similarities. Mistakes.
I don't understand it yet, but I know one thing for sure.
This is the first clue.
And whatever comes next won't make sense until I understand this.
I read the poem again, then fold it carefully and set it on the bed beside me.
It doesn't feel like something meant to be solved quickly. It feels like something meant to sit with me. That bothers me more than the locked door.
"I of yesterday."
I try to picture that person, whoever I was before waking up here, but there's nothing. No face. No memory. Just an empty space where a past should be. If that version of me existed, it doesn't anymore.
Forgotten.
I look around the room again, this time slower, forcing myself to follow the poem's instruction instead of fighting it.
Similarities. Mistakes.
I start with the books. I pull a few from the shelf and flip through them properly now. Some are filled with dense text, others with photographs glued carefully onto the pages. Black-and-white images of people smiling at a carnival. Couples standing too close. Children holding prizes. Faces that feel like they should mean something.
They don't.
I move on to the mirror. I stand in front of it, studying details instead of the whole. My eyes. My hands. The clothes I'm wearing. That's when I noticed it clearly for the first time.
The letter U printed on my shirt.
It's large. Bold. Impossible to miss once seen.
My chest tightens. A letter. A clue.
I test it immediately. I face the room and say it out loud.
"U."
Nothing happens.
I laugh under my breath, half out of embarrassment, half out of nerves. Of course it wouldn't be that easy. If it were, the room wouldn't bother with poems.
Still, I don't forget it.
I pace again, faster now. The posters. The mop. The trash can. The slippers tucked beside the bed. Everything feels both random and deliberate, which makes it hard to tell what matters and what's noise.
I grab one of the photo albums and flip through it again, this time comparing images. Same people, different angles. Same smiles, different days. Similar moments, repeated.
But something's wrong.
I can't tell what.
I sit down and force myself to think instead of react. The poem doesn't talk about objects directly. It talks about versions. About time. About days connecting, or failing to.
"I of yesterday."
"The you running through the days."
Running.
I glance around the room. There's nowhere to run. Barely enough space to walk.
That feels important.
I look down at my feet.
The slippers.
They're worn. Soft. Made for slow movement, not running.
A mistake.
I pick them up, turning them over in my hands. They don't look special, but neither did the pillow until I lifted it. I check inside both slippers carefully.
Nothing at first.
Then, folded deep inside one of them, I feel paper.
My pulse jumps as I pull it out.
Another poem.
> Two ends stuck in a null world,
closing in on each other through two forms.
A misty state you live in.
The world is forgotten and the time is wrong.
I sit back on the bed, holding the paper, and exhale slowly.
So the slippers were right.
Mistake found.
Two ends. Null world. Forgotten. Wrong time.
The words echo against the first poem in my head. Forgotten. Yesterday. Misty state.
This one feels heavier. Less abstract. Like it's pointing somewhere specific.
I move back to the shelf and pull out the photo album again, this time more carefully. I flip through page by page, not looking for familiarity, but for repetition. The same man appears in three different photos, always smiling, always at a slightly different angle. A woman stands beside him, her face subtly distorted from one image to the next, like the picture was corrected too many times. A child holds a prize that changes shape between shots.
These aren't memories that faded.
They're memories that were never real to begin with.
I close the album and feel a chill crawl up my arms that has nothing to do with the cold air.
A null world.
I scan the room again, but my eyes keep drifting back to the books.
Past. Memory. Records.
I return to the shelf and start pulling books one by one, checking every page this time. It took longer than I expected. My hands start to ache. Dust coats my fingers.
Then I see it.
A book with markings.
Not obvious ones. Just a few words underlined across several pages, spaced far enough apart that I might have missed them if I weren't looking closely. I sit down and trace the underlines, reading only what's been marked.
They form another poem.
Different words. Same tone.
Same idea.
The forgotten world. The wrong time. The mist.
I don't feel relieved when I find it. I feel confirmation.
The room isn't giving me random riddles. It's repeating itself, reshaping the same idea through different forms. Books. Poems. Objects.
Similarities.
I flip through the marked pages again, paying attention not just to what's written, but to what isn't. Blank spaces. Missing context. Gaps.
That's when it settles in.
A null world isn't a place that exists.
It's a place that looks like it should.
Just like my memories.
Just like yesterday.
I look at my reflection in the mirror again. Same face. No past.
A forgotten version of me, standing in a room built from things that pretend to be familiar.
Two ends closing in.
I don't know the word yet. Not fully.
But I know the direction now.
And for the first time since waking up, the room feels like it's waiting for me to catch up—
not like it's trying to trick me.
I spread the poems out on the bed, lining them up side by side.
They're different, but not really. Each one circles the same idea from another angle, like they're afraid to say it directly. Forgotten worlds. Mistakes in time. Versions of the self that don't line up.
I read the second poem again.
> Two ends stuck in a null world,
closing in on each other through two forms.
Two ends.
Two forms.
I scan the room, searching for pairs now instead of single objects. The bed and the mirror. The door and the window. The books and the photos. Everything feels doubled once I start looking for it.
My eyes land on the anatomy book I'd flipped through earlier. I hadn't given it much thought at the time, it felt too obvious, too literal, but now I pull it from the shelf and open it again.
I skim at first, then slower.
Diagrams. Labels. Systems broken into parts. Brain. Heart. Nervous pathways branching like roots.
I don't know why, but the pages feel heavier than the others.
I flip forward, and catch another subtle marking. Not an underline this time. A faint pencil line in the margin. Easy to miss. I follow it, then find another, and another.
They guide me to a section near the center of the book.
Another poem.
> Two minds, one soul.
Two brains, one born.
One moving, one direct.
One thinks, one adores.
Each guiding the soul.
I let out a quiet breath I didn't realize I was holding.
This one is clearer than the others. It doesn't hide as much.
Heart and brain.
Logic and emotion.
Movement and direction.