THE ARCHIVE THAT WASN’T THERE
CHAPTER 44 “The worst lies are the ones told with silence.” I didn’t move for a long time. The butterfly sat on my window like it belonged there. Still. Heavy in the way something so small shouldn’t be. A symbol, maybe. A message. Or maybe I was going insane. I shut the window slowly, careful not to disturb it. But even as the glass closed between us, it didn’t fly away. It didn’t even flinch. Just stayed there. Watching. The next morning, the butterfly was gone. So was the photograph. I searched again—beneath my mattress, inside my Ethics textbook, behind my wall mirror. Nothing. I even checked the kitchen. The cupboard. But the smudge was gone too. Like someone had come in while I slept and erased it all. But I knew what I saw. I remembered. And that terrified me more than
- Writer
