Episode 2: Message From The Shadows
1366 Words
"Some messages need no signature…
Because the receiver already knows who's typing."
— Journal, September 12
The fifth-floor hallway made no sound.
No footsteps. No laughter. No voices. Just the scent of old paper and dry sunlight wafting from the storage room. I stood there alone, facing the brown door with flaking paint, where light dared not linger.
The distorted window cast my shadow across the peeling wall. A crooked version of myself.
And then, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
Third time today.
[Unknown]: "How long are you going to keep pretending?"
I leaned back against the wall, silent.
Any reply I sent would be twisted anyway.
[Unknown]: "You're better than her. Your words bleed. Hers just get likes."
My chest tightened.
Not because it was cruel — but because it was true.
Only one person had ever read that draft.
And she had never said a word about it.
I remembered the night before. When everyone else had gone to sleep, I lay in bed under a dim light, staring at the draft I’d written for the school’s literature contest.
I’d deleted it.
Or I thought I did.
So how did someone else read it?
Unless...
In class, Lam sat at the front.
Her hair was half-tied, exposing the back of her neck. A faint red mark just above the collar — maybe from being pulled, maybe scratched. Her eyes stared forward at the board, but I knew that look: vacant.
She, too, was pretending.
Just like me.
“She’s got someone new, huh?” Minh Vũ nudged my elbow.
“Who?” I asked, even though I already knew.
“Lam. Saw her on someone’s story this morning. Posed with some rando.”
I didn’t reply.
I hadn’t watched her stories in two days.
“I don’t care,” I said.
Lie.
I did care.
But not the way people thought.
I cared about words. About how she took them, stepped on them, sliced and posted them as if they were hers.
During recess, I went straight to the fifth floor.
No one followed.
That staircase always had a thin layer of dust, the light dimmer with every step. As I climbed, the noise of the schoolyard faded, leaving only the sound of my breath.
I opened the storage room door.
It was still the same — desks piled in corners, warped bookshelves, an old projector covered in cloth.
I sat down. Pulled out my phone.
A new message.
[Unknown]: “What if she submitted your essay under her name?”
I froze.
My throat dry.
[Unknown]: “I read it. That voice — it was yours.”
Whoever was texting me…
knew too much.
Not a stranger.
Not a jealous classmate.
Someone who had read me.
Really read me.
That afternoon, I didn’t go home right away.
Instead, I wandered into a secondhand bookstore down Nguyễn Hữu Huân Street — a place few students knew, but real readers sometimes visited.
The old shopkeeper barely glanced at me. He kept reading a thick book titled The Silence of Language, glasses sliding off his nose.
I walked the aisles, brushing my fingers against spines. Not looking for anything in particular. Just somewhere no one could find me.
But the phone followed me there.
[Unknown]: “You once wrote, ‘I’m not afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of the silence inside it.’ Remember?”
My heartbeat skipped.
No one else knew that sentence.
I wrote it in a private journal in ninth grade. One I’d ripped up.
I looked around.
Empty. Just wind brushing through the back window.
But I could feel it — someone was watching.
That night, I got a photo.
Not a screenshot. Not a rumor.
A full scan — Lam’s contest submission. Her handwriting, yes. But every line… was mine.
She had copied it by hand. Tweaked a few commas.
But a true reader would know: that voice was me.
[Unknown]: “She already submitted it. If she wins, whose name will be called?”
I stared at the image.
And felt something tear inside my chest.
I replied. For the first time.
Me: “Who are you?”
[Unknown]: “Someone who believed in your words.”
Me: “Lam?”
[Unknown]: “No. But… close to her.”
I stared at the screen. Faces flashed through my mind — Lam’s friends, classmates, even our literature teacher. But none of them… knew my voice this well.
[Unknown]: “If you want the truth, come to the fifth floor. 6:00 PM. Alone.”
The next day — 5:56 PM.
I stood at the base of the stairs.
My palms cold. My heartbeat loud in my throat.
Each step felt heavier than the last. Like I wasn’t just climbing a staircase — I was descending into some shadow of myself.
The storage room door was ajar.
I pushed it open.
Inside, someone stood with their back to me.
Long hair. School uniform. Not Lam.
“You came.”
A girl’s voice — low, calm.
She turned.
It was Thu Uyên.
Thu Uyên. The quiet one.
She wasn’t Lam’s best friend. Not in any inner circle.
Smart. Quiet. Always scribbling something in the back of her notebook.
Most people thought she was cold.
Truthfully, I had never dared look too closely.
But now she stood before me — composed, unreadable.
“You sent the messages?”
I asked, already knowing the answer.
She nodded.
“I found your draft in the literature club room. Not on purpose. I was just curious… and then I couldn’t forget it.”
I froze.
I had left it behind — a draft I meant to revise.
Written in pencil, with edits in the margins.
The original.
“I didn’t think Lam would do that,” I murmured.
“But she did,” Uyên said quietly.
I looked at the floor.
It felt like the ground was splitting beneath me.
Uyên sat down, pulling out a folder.
“I didn’t come here to ruin Lam,” she said.
“I came because I hate watching someone like you go silent.”
“I once stayed quiet too. When a teacher used my poem in class without credit. I know what that silence feels like.”
I looked into her eyes.
For the first time, I didn’t see coldness — I saw something else:
Recognition.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
She was quiet. Then she handed me the folder.
“This is your original. And her submission. If you want, we can send it to the faculty.”
My hands shook.
Not from fear — but from knowing: once I sent it, there was no return.
“If I do this… I’ll lose her. Forever.”
Uyên replied:
“You already lost her. But if you do nothing, you’ll lose yourself too.”
I walked home in the rain.
No umbrella. No music.
Just the sound of wet footsteps and thoughts colliding in my head.
I used to think silence was safe.
But today, I realized:
Silence can also be betrayal.
I opened my phone.
Looked at the two images — my draft and hers.
Typed the school contest’s email address.
And wrote:
“Dear Committee,
I am submitting two essays with overlapping content. One belongs to me — Nguyễn An. The other was submitted under the name of Trịnh Dương Lam.
I have no intention to harm. I only want the truth to be seen.
Sincerely.”
I didn’t sign with a pen.
I signed with a voice that had been ignored for too long.
And pressed send.
A week later.
The school buzzed.
Lam vanished from social media for three days. Her old posts were wiped clean. In class, no one said anything. But everyone knew.
Thu Uyên walked past my desk. She nodded.
Not smiling. Just acknowledging.
I didn’t smile either.
I just wrote in my journal:
“I don’t know if I’m a traitor or someone being true.
But for the first time, my shadow in the mirror doesn’t feel broken.”
To be continued…
- Writer
