Episode 5: Someone Who Had Disappeared
1172 Words
The day An saw Lam again, it rained.
A sudden downpour right in the middle of Western Literature class. He hadn’t brought an umbrella and thought the library would be empty. But Lam was there—standing under a nearly bare flame tree.
He didn’t look like the Lam from before—not the one who’d debated writing theory with fiery eyes, who smirked when An mentioned “online culture,” who always said, "Post it, even if it’s too real."
This Lam was quieter. Duller. Like someone who had taken the wrong turn and never quite found the road back.
“Haven’t seen you post under your name lately,” Lam said, eyes staring past An.
“I still write,” An answered. “Just not for others.”
“Yeah. That’s always been you.”
They didn’t talk about the past. Not about “The Third Hand.” Not about the stolen piece. Not about the apology that never made it out of Lam’s mouth.
But silence carries its own vocabulary.
“Be careful with the fifth floor,” Lam said before walking away.
An didn’t answer.
He simply watched Lam go, wondering: had Lam ever climbed that staircase—or only stood below, like An once did?
After that day, Nguyen An wrote more.
At first, only fragments—old memories, discarded thoughts. Then longer pieces, pouring out as if the stories inside him had been waiting for years to be heard.
The fifth floor was no longer frightening.
It became a refuge.
A place where no one asked what would “go viral.” Where no one changed his titles to fit trends. Where no one crossed out lines that were “too heavy for students.”
Only paper. Ink. And the stillness, like a voice whispering:
“Write, if you still want to hear yourself.”
One night, as he was halfway through a story, he noticed a new manuscript on the fifth floor’s desk.
One he hadn’t seen before.
No title. No date.
The first line:
“Someone who once existed is gone. But might still be written back.”
It was about a student named L.A.—a former “editor,” someone who trimmed stories too sharp, erased lines too raw. Then, one day, they vanished. Email deactivated. Username lost. No trace.
No one spoke of them again.
But the last line of the manuscript read:
“The final editor now lives on the fifth floor. But they no longer remember they ever did.”
That night, An dreamed of Lam.
In the dream, Lam sat at the desk of the fifth floor, crossing out lines in red ink—his own writing. One by one, each sentence vanished. Until the page was blank.
An tried to scream. No sound came.
The next morning, An sent an email. No recipient. No address. Just a message:
“If you were once the editor, then I’m the one picking up what you erased.”
He didn’t expect a reply.
But an hour later, a message arrived from an unknown sender:
“Room 5. But not upstairs. Room 5, ground floor. Old building.”
He knew the place.
A forgotten classroom, once used by the Creative Writing department. Abandoned now, with broken desks and smudged whiteboards.
He went there at 11 p.m.
It was dark.
But Lam was there.
“Not everyone gets to the fifth floor,” Lam said. “Someone always has to be lost first.”
“What did you lose?” An asked.
Lam didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he handed over a small notebook.
Inside were edits. Unpublished drafts. Pages with red lines crossing through full paragraphs. Wounds in ink.
“I didn’t hate the truth,” Lam said. “I just... thought people weren’t ready for it.”
“And now?”
Lam looked up.
“Now I think... truth doesn’t wait. It finds whoever dares to carry it. Like you.”
An said nothing.
For the first time, he didn’t see Lam as the one who betrayed him.
Only someone who had once tried to be a gatekeeper—and drowned in the weight of what they protected.
That night, An wrote again.
He wrote about Lam. Not by name. Not with any labels. But anyone who’d ever been part of the club would know: this was the one who read every draft first, who always said “tighten this part,” who once whispered, “This word doesn’t match the soul of your piece.”
And the one who crossed himself out after a single mistake.
After it was posted, the writing club received an anonymous message:
“Thank you for remembering someone we forgot.”
A week later, An returned to the fifth floor.
There was a new manuscript.
No name.
Just one line:
“When you write about someone without naming them, you’re naming them in a way the world never could.”
An folded the paper. Placed it in his bag.
No one spoke of Lam again.
But on the club’s intranet, under “Members,” a name appeared again:
Lam Nguyen.
No one knew who restored it.
Only one note remained:
“Last edited by: Nguyen An.”
An kept writing—almost nightly.
The fifth floor wasn’t just a place. It was a rhythm now, pulsing in his bloodstream. Writing there wasn’t a task, but a ritual. Like stepping into a confession booth, but instead of penance, there was understanding.
One evening, while cleaning the corner shelf, An found a cardboard folder tucked behind dusty files. No label. No marks.
Inside were fragments—scribbles. Short lines.
“I used to raise my hand in class, but no one looked.”
“People truly hurting never post captions.”
“When I disappeared, no one unfriended me. Because no one had friended me to begin with.”
Each line was a bruise disguised as a sentence.
He didn’t recognize the handwriting.
But each one spoke directly to something long buried within him.
He began thinking of Uyen.
A first-year student who once sent him her draft. The only person who never commented on posts, only reacted with a heart—and disappeared from all platforms since last October.
He searched her name.
Facebook—no results.
Google—nothing.
Zalo—“User has deleted account.”
Back on the fifth floor, a new file appeared.
Untitled. Named only: “U.”
The first line:
“I no longer wish to exist in other people’s stories. But if someone writes me in, let it be with just an initial.”
An froze.
He didn’t know what to say.
He didn’t know what to write.
But he knew one thing: people who aren’t remembered don’t just vanish from life. They vanish from memory.
He placed his hands on the keyboard.
Typed the first line:
“There was once a girl who texted me every Monday morning.”
And from there, her story began.
To be continued...
- Writer
