Chapter Nine: The Whisper That Won't Be Forgotten
Sometimes... you don't need to hear a voice to hear it.
A shiver behind the ear, or that sting crawling down your neck is enough to know—
Something... someone... some shadow... is whispering to you.
And I heard that whisper.
I wasn't asleep, as usual.
But that night, it wasn't just insomnia that kept me awake—
It was a haunting feeling…
As if the room no longer belonged to me.
As if someone else was breathing the air I breathed.
The room was still.
So still, I could hear my heart clapping, not just beating.
I was rereading the page written the night before, the same sentence, in my handwriting—or something resembling it:
> "At midnight, you will read something that hasn't been written yet."
I closed the notebook, then opened it again.
The blank page was still blank—
But I felt it... full.
As if the words were hiding beneath the ink, waiting only for me to blink… to burst out.
I sat on the floor.
I don't know why.
I felt like the chair might betray me—that only the ground could bear the weight of my head.
I was afraid... but not of something specific.
I was afraid of the when—
The moment the next sentence would explode and rearrange my mind.
Then the whisper began.
At first, it was faint.
Like someone whispering into my ear from behind the wall.
I couldn't make out the words,
But I felt the intention—
And that was worse.
When words are said clearly, you have the chance to reject them.
But when they fall on you like rain, unintelligible,
They dissolve you—without permission.
The whisper repeated.
And with each repetition, my heart beat differently—
As if something inside it had started playing a melody that didn't belong to me.
I said:
"Who's there?"
No one answered.
But the paper on the table turned itself over.
…
This isn't imagination.
I know when I'm imagining, and when I'm going mad.
This was neither.
This was… an intrusion.
As if reality itself decided to change its rules—just for me.
I approached the paper.
A single sentence appeared, written before my eyes:
> "You didn't write anything. Everything has written you."
And that's when I understood.
The novel doesn't write itself.
And I don't write it either.
There is a being writing both of us.
A creature that watches, rewrites, reshapes moments, distorts the past just enough to make it seem logical.
I left the room.
I couldn't take it anymore.
The silence began screaming inside me.
Every piece of furniture became a twisted mirror—
Throwing back a version of my face I didn't recognize.
In the living room, there was a new paper.
Placed on the table I never use.
It hadn't been there before.
And no one lives with me.
I opened the paper, my hand trembling.
> "In the basement, something waits for your name."
I had no choice.
I went down.
---
The basement wasn't how I remembered it.
There was no familiar damp smell.
No dust that had always haunted the space.
Instead—
It was clean.
Unsettlingly clean.
As if someone had prepared it for my visit.
As if the basement had undergone a funeral ceremony.
At its center, there was a mirror.
Just one—old.
The kind of mirror that shows you your past, not your reflection.
I looked.
But I didn't see myself.
I saw Ryan.
Standing.
Silent.
Looking at me as if something had never been forgiven.
The whisper came again—
But this time... from inside my head:
> "Was he never real?
Or were you the one who wasn't?"
I collapsed.
My knees couldn't hold the weight of that question.
The mirror began to drip.
Not blood. Not water.
But words—written in black ink:
> "If you write his name... he will return.
But if you forget him... you will vanish."
Ryan?
Should I write him?
Should I bring him back—just to prove to myself that I exist?
But... what if I am him?
Or he is me?
Or we both were written… with the same pen?
The mirror gave no answer.
But my name appeared on its surface—
The name that had never been mentioned before.
The name I had forgotten too.
But I won't write it.
Not now.
I won't write it…
Because the novel is watching.
And the next page...
Will decide who we really are.