Sofia
The phone didn’t come back.
Not that day. Not the next morning. No explanation was offered, and no mention was made of its disappearance. It was simply gone.
I didn’t ask for it. There wasn’t a point. The pattern was already etched into the walls of this house: you push, and the world around you shifts just enough to remind you that your hands are not on the levers.
So I adjusted. Not because I was breaking, but because I was watching.
I followed the schedule. I was at the table for breakfast at seven. I moved through the hallways where I was expected to be. I kept my questions silent. It didn't feel like surrender; it felt like a reconnaissance mission.
If this house was a machine, it had a cockpit. A brain. You don't manage this level of coordination like the staff appearing
