Unbind me

chapter 6

I step closer, running a finger along the top shelf. Dust-free. Spotless. Like everything else in this room, it's been prepared with meticulous care, but without any thought for me as a person. It's not here to serve me; it's here to pacify me.

A bookshelf with no books. A desk with no papers. A bed with no comfort. A window with no escape.

I laugh bitterly under my breath.

The emptiness gnaws at me, stirring something restless in my chest. I've spent years with nothing but the walls to look at, nothing but the sound of my own thoughts to keep me company. I thought I'd gotten used to it.

But now I realize how much I craved distraction. Even the battered notebook Kenji returned feels like an anchor, something to focus on besides the dull hum of the camera and the weight of my own isolation.

I move back to the desk and pick it up, flipping it open. The pages are exactly as I left them—my messy scrawls mixed with the sterile notes of a doctor who thought of me as nothing more than an experiment.

"Subject displays inconsistent abilities under duress. Further testing required to determine stability."

I run my fingers over the words, my mind drifting back to the asylum. Those endless tests. The wires. The machines I couldn't understand. The way they looked at me, as if I were a specimen under glass.

I turn the page.

"Potential for destructive output remains significant. Recommend continued isolation and suppression of abilities."

I slam the notebook shut and toss it onto the bed. My powers stir faintly in response, a spark of energy flickering beneath my skin. I curl my hands into fists, willing them to stay dormant.

I can't let them take over—not here. Not now.

I glance at the empty bookshelf again, the void where books should be.

If they thought this room would keep me calm, they don't understand me at all. This sterile perfection, this vacuum of meaning—it's worse than the asylum in some ways. At least there, the chaos matched my own.

I sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the blank shelves, and feel the familiar weight of loneliness settle over me.

Not just loneliness—emptiness.

I pull the notebook back onto my lap, flipping to a clean page. My handwriting is still messy, but I force the pen to move, scrawling words across the paper. I don't know what I'm writing, only that I need to fill the silence with something, anything.

Words spill out—disjointed thoughts, half-formed ideas, fragments of memory. They don't have to make sense. They just have to exist.

Because an empty room, an empty shelf, an empty life—I can't let that be all there is.

· · ────── · ❈ · ────── · ·

I write for what feels like hours, the pen scratching against the paper in a rhythm that helps keep the restlessness at bay. The words tumble out in a stream of consciousness—half memories, half things I wish I could forget.

They didn't give me a choice. They never asked. I was just a kid. Just a kid who couldn't control it, who didn't understand what was happening.

I stop, my hand trembling slightly as I grip the pen tighter. I force myself to breathe slowly, to steady the erratic thrum of energy stirring beneath my skin.

Don't think about it. Don't let it out.

The notebook slips from my hands and lands on the floor, pages splayed open. I don't pick it up right away. Instead, I move to the window above the desk and press my forehead against the cool glass. The sunlight streams in, pale and muted by the clouds outside. It's strange to have light at all, but it feels... foreign. Like it doesn't belong here. Like I don't belong here.