33 days

In the morning, I slowly opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. An unfamiliar ceiling.

Rubbing my eyes, I sat up in bed and looked around. An unfamiliar room.

I couldn’t remember yesterday, or anything before that.

Where was I?

Voices were coming from another room, somewhere far away.

I stood up and looked outside through the window. I rubbed my eyes against the sunlight.

The emptiness in my head was disturbing me. I didn’t know my name, my age, or where I was.

I walked toward the door and left the room.

The voices were coming from a distant room.

As I walked down the hallway, I noticed my reflection in the mirror beside me.

I turned to the mirror and examined myself.

My hair was wavy dark brown, my eyes were dark brown, and I was tall.

There were stains just below my neck.

Strangely, one of my eyebrows was white.

I touched my white eyebrow and murmured,

“Why is it white..?”

Shaking my head, I pulled myself out of my thoughts and continued walking down the hallway.

When I finally reached the room the voices were coming from, I reached for the half-open door.

The moment my hand touched it, I felt a sharp pain in my heart and pulled back.

The voices stopped.

When the pain faded, I caught my breath and entered the room, examining it.

This room… was empty.

There was nothing inside.

I stepped into the middle of the room and paused.

The voices started again, echoing throughout the room.

Was this my voice?

Whose voice was it?

The voice whispered into my ear,

“Why are you here? Why are you disturbing us?”

Startled, with a slight sense of fear, I quickly left the room.

I pressed my hand against my rapidly beating heart and tightly shut my eyes.

While keeping my eyes closed, it occurred to me that I could go outside.

I opened my eyes and ran toward the front door, opened it, and stepped outside.

It was a normal street. Everyone was minding their own business.

I walked a little further and examined the house I had woken up in.

A ruined, worn-down house. Old, unused for years.

But the inside looked newer.

As I narrowed my eyes, I heard the sound of a car horn.

I quickly stepped onto the sidewalk and watched the car pass.

When I noticed a cat beside me, I smiled and petted it.

If people could see me, then I wasn’t a ghost or a spirit…

So why was this house like this?

Haunted?

Cursed?

Possessed?..

Holding the cat in my arms, I went back inside the house.

There were five rooms in the house, and I had only entered two of them. The room I woke up in, and the empty room.

I entered the room I had woken up in again while petting the cat, and suddenly paused.

This room was empty too.

When I first woke up, this room definitely looked like a child’s room.

So why was it empty now?

I put the cat down and, trying to shake off my confusion, went back into the other empty room I had entered before.

The room where I had heard the voices.

This was a child’s room…?

With slight fear, I opened the window and took a deep breath.

What was going on here?

The sun was almost directly above.

I stepped back from the window, sat on the bed, and let my hair down.

“I have a bad feeling inside.”

When the cat entered the room and came closer to me, I picked it up and gently stroked it.

After calming down a little, I placed the cat on the bed, stood up, and began exploring the other rooms.

Except for the child’s room, all of them were empty. Completely empty.

Like the rooms of a newly built house. Spotless and hollow.

There were no clues in the empty rooms.

When I returned to the child’s room and tried to open the wardrobe, I realized it was locked.

When I opened the drawers of the nightstand, I saw that they were empty.

There were no clues in the child’s room either.

What if I searched for clues outside?

With hope, I went outside and started walking along the sidewalk.

There was no kitchen in this house. What would I eat if I got hungry?

I saw a small grocery store with its door open.

They had probably left it open because it was hot outside and they didn’t have air conditioning.

I went inside.

As I examined the shelves, I suddenly paused.

If it was hot outside… why couldn’t I feel it?

I shivered.

As I tried to pick up a random food item from the shelf, I noticed my hand passed straight through the package and I pulled it back.

“What…?”

I quickly approached the shopkeeper and spoke,

“Sir, can you see me?”

I waved my hand and looked at him expectantly.

He showed no reaction, only staring outside.

I rushed out of the store and tried talking to random people on the street.

I tried once…

Twice…

Even after nearly thirty attempts, no one reacted.

So… am I a spirit?

Why?

Am I dead?

When?

Panicking, I sat down on the sidewalk.

So that car horn… wasn’t meant for me?

Apparently, I couldn’t touch objects in the real world…

Then how was I sitting on the sidewalk?

When I looked down, I realized I was sinking into it.

I stood up and walked into the middle of the road.

Cars passed straight through me.

I walked toward a building wall, paused, then reached out my hand.

My hand went straight through the wall.

I can’t believe this.

What am I…?

When my head was shaken by a violent pain, I saw it.

The cat I had loved and petted…

While I was looking at the house, a car honked and hit it, killing it.

That was why the cat had suddenly appeared beside me.

That was why I could touch it.

It was a spirit too.

Just like me.

I opened my eyes in shock and rubbed my forehead.

I went back home and stepped inside. As I walked down the hallway, my reflection in the mirror caught my attention.

My other eyebrow had turned white too…

Why?

In disbelief, I entered the room that had previously been the child’s room and saw that it was empty.

This house was practically playing games with me.

I sat on the bed, rubbing my forehead, when the cat entered the room.

I picked it up, petted it, and drifted into my thoughts.

When night fell, I was still thinking about who and what I was, but I could never reach a conclusion.

It was as if my memories had been sealed away somehow, leaving behind a vast emptiness.

If I was a spirit, I wouldn’t need sleep or any other needs.

Maybe I needed to find a clue.

I stood up and left the child’s room, wandering through the empty rooms again,

until I reached the last one.

When I entered the final room, I noticed faint words on the wall:

“DEATH, SPIRIT, LIVING, SELF, SEEING”

As I reached out to touch the writing on the wall, the light began to flicker.

A voice whispered into my ear,

“Are you in limbo?”

As the voice echoed in my ear, I stepped back in fear.

When I blinked, the room returned to its old state.

I murmured to myself,

“Limbo…?”

I knew nothing about spirits.

If I was stuck in limbo…

Was that why I was in this world?

With a sigh, I left the room and headed toward the child’s room.

The child’s room had changed places again.

When I looked into the empty room that had previously been the child’s room, I noticed a door I hadn’t seen before.

I opened it.

A garden.

Did this house have a garden?

I walked around the garden, examining it.

There was only one large tree.

Once again, this information added nothing.

Maybe I should wait for tomorrow.

Maybe everything had its own time.

Since I couldn’t feel anything, I couldn’t feel the cold outside either.

I crouched down on the grass and watched the sky all night.