Page 7

The routine preserves what remains of my sanity. In a place where nothing changes, discipline becomes invention. I’ve memorized the stonework beneath my feet, the placement of every volume on the shelves, each frayed thread in the faded tapestries they permitted me.

The eighth form requires a full extension. A twist at the waist and a reverse grip.My knuckles whiten around nothing. My breath remains steady. Hips anchored. My shoulder rotates with the false momentum of a downward strike. The form ends in stillness, but it must be earned.

I count silently, measuring the cadence of my movements against words I’ve repeated in my head so many times they’ve lost all meaning. My throat hasn’t shaped sounds in years. There’s no point. The tower doesn’t answer, and the walls don’t care.

Still, I complete it. If I stop, something essential will break. Something I won’t be able to repair.

When it’s done, my hand drops. I stand, motionless in the center of the chamber, and breathe.

In. Hold. Out.

In. Hold. Out.

Once my heart rate settles, I cross to my desk and pick up the quill. It’s another ritual I keep. One just as essential as the combat forms. I dip the quill and drag it across the blank page. The motion is automatic. The words don’t matter. I record them anyway.

Day 9,855. The boundary holds. The tower does not change. Does anyone still exist beyond these walls?

Meaningless record-keeping. Pointless defiance. But I do it. Every day. The alternative is surrender. And then my time here would be measured only by the way the invisible boundary tightens. Hour by hour. Night after night.

The tower provides everything I need. Food, water, books, furniture, ink, and parchment, but never freedom.

A book lies open beside my writing hand. I’ve memorizedevery word, every sentence, every crease in the page. I could recite it backward if the silence became too loud.

I used to. But I stopped when the sound of my own voice became another form of loneliness.

I stare at the words I’m writing, pretending they still matter. But it’s only another ritual way to mark the hours. The same way I monitor the change in the air when dusk approaches. Or how the invisible boundary draws inward from the walls.

When they first sealed me inside this chamber, I wondered why they didn’t kill me.

I understand now.

They didn’t want me dead. They wanted me erased.

Forgotten. Buried beneath silence and dust until even my name faded from memory.

I have lived in that silence for so long, it’s become a part of me. I know its shape, its weight.

So when something changes, when the air moves in a way it hasn’t in decades, I notice.

At first, I dismiss it as a trick of memory. One more hallucination born of years alone. But then Ihearit.

Footsteps.

I stop breathing. My body locks.

A figure steps through the archway, not imagined or remembered, but real. Walking into my chamber as if they’d only stepped out for a moment.

I don’t move. I don’t even blink. My mind stalls, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing.

How? Why? Who?

But all I can do is stare.

Their head turns, gaze darting around the room, passing over me without pause. There’s confusion in the way they move, slow and uncertain. Layers of clothing hang awkwardly off their frame, heavy and ill-suited for the desert. Sand clings to the fabric. Sweat stains it dark in uneven patches. Their hands shake as they reach toward the shelves and brush the spine of one of my books.

I stare at the trail of sand they leave behind. The first disruption this floor has seen in decades. And it breaks the paralysis holding me in place. I push back from the desk and stand, just as the figure turns.

The light touches her face. Female. Young. Perhaps a few years younger than I was when I was locked away. She stares at me, frozen mid-step.