He woke in a room he didn't recognize, and—more disturbingly—he couldn't remember if he'd ever seen it before.
The light was soft. Not warm. Not cold. Just… there. Like the world had turned down its volume. Walls the color of unspoken words. A bed too neatly made. A window with nothing outside—just a pale, static grey, as if the sky had forgotten what to be.
He sat up slowly. No pain. No hunger. No name.
That thought made him freeze.
What was his name?
He waited for it to arrive, for the familiar syllables to bubble up from somewhere in the gut, the throat, the tongue. Nothing came. Only the rhythm of breath and the faint ticking of something that wasn't there.
Then he saw the envelope.
It lay on the nightstand. Cream-colored. Uncreased. Waiting.
There was no dust on it. No handwriting on the front. And yet, somehow, he knew it was meant for him. Not just addressed to him—meant for him. Like the air had placed it there out of sympathy.
He picked it up. It felt heavier than it should.
Inside was a single folded note, the paper slightly warm to the touch, like someone had just set it down.
The handwriting was sharp, slanted. He didn't recognize it.
"By the time you read this, it'll be too late. But you won't remember that either."
"You will forget this story. That's how it protects you."
"Don't look for me. Don't try to find the beginning. Just keep moving forward. That's the only way you'll reach the end."
There was no name at the bottom.
He reread it twice. Or maybe three times. He wasn't sure. Every time he blinked, the words seemed to curl at the edges of his mind, like paper too close to fire.
The sound came then—soft, familiar, like a doorknob turning somewhere just out of sight.
He looked up.
There was a door in the room now.
He was certain it hadn't been there before. But somehow, he wasn't surprised.
With the letter still in hand, he stood.
He reached the door. Paused. Something in him—it didn't feel like fear. More like recognition—tugged at the edge of his chest.
He turned the knob.
The hallway beyond stretched longer than it should have. Too long. Almost amused by its own length. A corridor with no visible end, walls flickering slightly like an old film reel left in the sun.
But it was the only way forward.
He stepped through.
The door closed quietly behind him.
And then—just before the chapter could end, just before the memory could anchor—he thought he heard a voice whisper behind him.
So soft it might've been inside his skull.
"You've done this before."
And then it was gone.