The school day was a blur of faces Miko didn't know and voices she didn't want to hear. When she had first moved to this school, she promised herself she would be different. She tried to smile more, to be the social version of herself she saw in movies. But the Void inside her was too heavy.
Eventually, she stopped trying. Now, she was just the girl in the back row who stared at the floor.
As the final bell rang, Miko didn't linger. She had no one to wave goodbye to. She walked out of the gates alone, her shadow stretching long and thin against the pavement.
She pulled out a small, battered keypad phone. Its plastic casing was scratched, her mother bought it for one reason only—surveillance.
She pressed the buttons, the mechanical click-click-click echoing in the quiet hallway.
"Mom? I'm leaving school now," Miko said when the line picked up.
There was no "How was your day?" Only a sharp, "Hurry up. Don't waste time."
The line went dead.
The journey home took an hour and a half. Miko spent it pressed against the bus window, watching the city lights flicker on as the sun began to dip. The transition from day to night always made her nervous; it reminded her too much of the fading sunlight in her dreams.
At 6:00 PM, she finally turned the key in her front door. The house was dark, save for a single light in the kitchen. The familiar smell of stale air greeted her. She was home, but she didn't feel safe. She just felt like she had moved from one cage to another.
"I'm back"
she called out as soon as she entered the room.
The only reply was the hum of the refrigerator and the distant, sound of her mother moving plates in the kitchen. The 1.5-hour journey had ended, but the exhaustion in her bones felt like it would last forever.
Miko kicked off her shoes by the door, aligning them neatly—a habit her mother had beaten into her. The red concrete floor was cold beneath her socks.The kitchen light flickered. Her mother stood by the stove, back turned, stirring something in a pot. The steam rose in lazy spirals, twisting into some uneven shapes.
"Don't just stand there. Come eat."
"You're not eating."
"I'm not hungry."
Her mother set down the spoon. The clink against the counter was loud, deliberate.
"I work all day so you can have that food. The least you can do is eat it."
The words landed like stones in water. Miko watched the ripples spread across the surface of her mind.
"I'm sorry," she muttered.
Her mother sighed—a long, theatrical exhale. "You know what your problem is? You have no spirit. No fight in you. When I was your age, I was already working alongside studying for my degree."
She took a bite. Chewed slowly. Swallowed without another word. The silence streched, uncomfortable and deafening.
Later, in her room, Miko sat on the edge of her bed. The window was open, letting in the cool evening air. Outside, the streetlights cast orange pools on the pavement. Somewhere, a dog barked.
She thought about the mother dog. Whether she was still eating. Whether her puppies were warm.
Then she thought about herself—trapped in this room, in this house, in this life. The walls felt closer tonight. The ceiling felt lower.
She lay back against the pillow, staring at the ceiling where a small crack ran from one corner to the other. It looked like a river on a map. Or a fissure in glass.
How long before it shatters? she wondered.
The question wasn't about the ceiling.
She didn't dream of the Void that night.
Instead, she dreamed of a room with no walls. Just endless white, stretching in every direction. She stood in the center, completely alone.
In front of her was a mirror—tall, frameless, rising from the floor like a monolith.
She walked toward it.
Her reflection looked back at her. Same uniform. Same tired eyes. But something was wrong. The reflection wasn't moving exactly when she moved. It was slightly... delayed. Like an echo.
"Who are you?" Miko asked.
Her reflection smiled. It was a smile she had never worn—a smile full of sharp edges.
"You know who I am," it said. "You've always known."
Miko woke up blinking then stared at the ceiling.
The room was dark, the sky covered in dark clouds. The only light visible was from the street lights outside . And when she touched her face, her cheeks were wet with tears? or sweat?
She didn't know
The night streched and Miko laid awake on the bed staring at the ceiling unable to fall asleep. This has slowly become a part of her life, a part of who she was.