The silence in this apartment is deafening. It’s a thick, heavy blanket that smothers every other sound, including the insistent buzzing of my phone. I know who it is. Probably the maids they’ve been trying all day. I haven’t eaten since last night. My stomach growls, a hollow, echoing complaint, but I ignore it. Food feels… unnecessary. Everything feels unnecessary.
I stare at the peeling paint on the opposite wall, tracing the faded pattern with my eyes. This apartment… it’s a relic. A ghost of a life I used to live. A life I thought I’d escaped. And yet, here I am, back in its dusty embrace, feeling just as lost and empty as I did before.
A memory flickers. Warm, like a hearth fire in the dead of winter. Professor El-Masri. Her kind eyes, the gentle curve of her smile. She’d
