ESCAPE

Chapter 1 I woke up before the sun. Not because I wanted to, but because my mind wouldn’t let me sleep. The quiet in my room was heavy—like something pressing down on my chest. I lay still and stared at the cracked ceiling above me. My hands felt strange. Tight, like I was holding onto something I couldn’t see. Yesterday, I told my mom I wasn’t hungry. She just said okay, like everything was normal. Like I was normal. At school, I walked through the hallways like I was underwater. Everyone else was loud and fast, but I moved slow and quiet. Nobody noticed me. There was a girl in my class named Nova. She talked like she wasn’t afraid of anything. She walked like she owned the world. I wondered what it was like to be free. To not feel stuck inside. Today, I told myself I would try harder. Smile more. Speak up. Pretend I was okay. But my body felt tired. So tired. I don’t know when I started feeling like this. But I know one thing: if I don’t find a way to feel better soon, I might disappear completely. Absolutely! Here’s the continuation of Chapter 1 of Escape, picking up from where we left off and deepening the story with more description, thoughts, and a bit of dialogue: --- I sat up slowly and swung my legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold against my feet, but it felt better than lying in the quiet that made my chest tighten. I rubbed my hands together, hoping the strange feeling would go away. My phone buzzed on the nightstand. A message from Maya. “You coming to school today?” I stared at it, my throat tight. I wanted to say yes. I wanted to be normal, to walk the halls with her and laugh like I used to. But the words got stuck inside me. I typed back, “I don’t think so.” Almost instantly, the phone buzzed again. “You okay? You can talk to me.” I wanted to answer. I wanted to tell her everything. But I just put the phone down and got dressed. I looked in the mirror. My hair was a mess, and my eyes looked tired—like they had seen too much. I barely recognized the face staring back at me. Downstairs, Mom was already making breakfast. She smiled when she saw me but didn’t ask if I was feeling better. I wasn’t sure if she even noticed. I sat at the kitchen table, pushing my eggs around my plate. The silence between us was loud. I wanted to say something. Anything. But the words didn’t come. “Are you coming to school?” Mom finally asked. I shook my head. “Not today.” She nodded and went back to cooking. I looked out the window and watched the kids walking to school, their backpacks bouncing, their voices loud. They didn’t know what I was feeling. They didn’t know I was slowly disappearing. Maybe tomorrow I’d try .