I was alive.
But not living.
That was the hardest truth to accept.
Days passed… or maybe weeks. Time had no meaning anymore. Morning, night—it was all the same darkness behind my eyes. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even tell if I was dreaming or awake.
I was trapped.
Inside my own body.
I could hear everything, though.
Footsteps. Doors opening. Plates clinking in the kitchen. My mother’s voice… softer now, like life had been drained out of her too. Every sound reminded me that the world was still moving—
Without me.
I tried to move a finger.
Nothing.
Tried to open my mouth.
Nothing.
Not even a whisper.
It felt like I had been buried alive, forced to watch life go on from beneath the soil.
A breathing corpse.
That’s what I had become.
They would come in and
