At first there was only the sound.

Not voices, not memory, not even thought—just the rain. It pressed against the world with a weight that seemed almost deliberate, each drop falling heavy, insistent, endless.

It filled the silence so completely that for a long while she could not tell if she was hearing it from outside herself or from some echo within her own body. It was everywhere, drumming against glass, spilling down unseen walls, gathering into a single unbroken murmur.

~Shaaaaaa

She floated in that sound for what felt like an eternity, not quite awake but no longer entirely lost in sleep. A liminal space. Drifting. She became aware, slowly, that she was lying down—that there was a surface beneath her, firm but not unyielding. A bed, perhaps. A cot. Her arms lay close to her sides, hemmed in by narrowness. The edges were near. She had little room to stretch.

Her eyelids flickered. The darkness behind them was no different than the darkness that greeted her when she opened her eyes. It was thick, immovable, the kind of dark that seemed to have substance. She blinked once, twice, trying to clear it, but nothing changed.

She lay still, waiting for something—she wasn’t sure what. A memory, maybe. A name. But nothing came.

Her mind was blank.

She tried to reach for the thread of the dream she had been pulled from, but it unraveled the instant she touched it. Gone. Then she reached further back, into the day before—what had she done? Where had she gone? She found nothing but fog. The day before that? Again, nothing. It was as though her mind was a room with all the windows shuttered, every light extinguished, every trace of herself removed.

A tremor moved through her chest.

-Who… am I?

The question rose not from logic but from panic, as if some deeper part of her had been holding it at bay and could do so no longer. She mouthed the words silently in the dark, as though shaping them would summon an answer. But the silence returned only the sound of rain, heavy, relentless, drowning out all else.

Her head ached. A steady throb, low and deep, pulsed at her temples, making thought slippery. She closed her eyes again, not because it helped, but because it felt like the only thing to do.

She was thirsty. She realized it suddenly, the way one realizes they’ve been holding their breath too long. Her throat was raw, her mouth dry as dust. She swallowed, the motion painful. The thought of water sharpened all at once, blooming into a need so strong she almost sat up without thinking. But her body resisted, heavy, sluggish, as though weighed down by invisible chains.

Carefully, she moved her hand instead. It slid across the coarse sheet beneath her, then further outward. The edge of the mattress came quickly, confirming again the bed’s smallness. Beyond it, her fingers brushed against wood—a table, perhaps. She let her hand drift across its surface, tentative, until she found what she had hoped for.

Glass.

Cool beneath her fingertips, beaded faintly with condensation. Her hand tightened around it. She drew it closer, every movement deliberate, her body too weak for haste. The rain outside seemed to grow louder with each second, as if urging her forward, as if mocking her thirst.

She lifted the glass and brought it to her lips. The water was cold, blessedly cold, and when it touched her tongue she nearly wept with relief. She drank greedily, too quickly, coughing once as it caught in her throat, but she did not stop. She swallowed again and again until she had emptied half the glass, then pulled it away, gasping softly.

For a moment she lay still, clutching it to her chest, listening to the hammering rain.

The headache had dulled slightly, softened by the water. But the emptiness inside her mind remained.

She tried again. Think. Remember. Her name, at least. A single word. Something to hold onto. She searched, dragging herself through the fog. But there was nothing. Only silence. Only rain.

Her breathing grew uneven. The walls felt closer now, the dark pressing in. She turned her head slightly, hoping for a shape, a crack of light, anything. But the room yielded no details, only shadow. Still, she could sense the confines of it: narrow, windowless except for that one pane where the rain battered mercilessly. Small. Suffocating.

Why am I here? Who put me here?

The questions multiplied, tightening around her chest. She clenched her eyes shut again, pressing her hand against her forehead as though she could force an answer out through the ache. But her mind remained a void, empty of all she expected to find.

She tried to remember her face. Even that betrayed her. No image surfaced. No features. Not even a fragment of color or expression. It was as though she had been scraped clean, every piece of herself stripped away, leaving her raw and unfinished.

The panic swelled, hot and sharp.

‘No. Stay calm. One thing at a time. You woke up. You drank water. You’re here.’

She forced her breathing to steady. Inhale. Exhale. The stale air did little to soothe, but the rhythm gave her something to cling to.

The rain did not let up. If anything, it seemed to fall harder, its rhythm pounding against the glass like a demand. She listened to it, tried to let it anchor her. But the sound carried no comfort, only the weight of a storm that felt endless.

She lowered the glass back to the table, placing it carefully so it would not tip. Her hand lingered there, palm pressed against the wood as though to ground herself in something real. Then she pulled it back slowly, fingers curling into the blanket.

Her body was still heavy, her head still pounding, but her mind was awake now—awake and aching with questions. The dark pressed in around her, thick and impenetrable. She lay on the narrow bed, staring into nothing, listening to the storm outside, and realized with cold certainty:

She did not know herself.

Not her name.
Not her past.
Not even why she was here.

All she had was the darkness, the narrow room, the headache, and the endless sound of rain.

—–

After a while, rain had not stopped. If anything, it had grown heavier, a ceaseless torrent that rattled the glass as though it meant to break through. She lay listening for a while longer, half-afraid to move, half-afraid not to. But lying still would not bring answers.

Yes, she craved answers- maybe she might find out more about the place she was in if she leaves this crampet room. Maybe she’ll find more of herself in this desolate, dark place.

The walls felt too close. The darkness too absolute.

At last, she shifted.

The mattress dipped with her weight as she eased herself toward the edge. Her body protested—stiff, sluggish—but she pressed on, hands braced against the coarse blanket for balance. The narrow bed released her reluctantly, and for an instant she hovered in the darkness, suspended between hesitation and resolve.

Her feet found the floor.

The shock of cold wood jolted through her, sharp and immediate. She hissed softly, toes curling against the chill. The boards were uneven, worn smooth in places, rough in others. They carried the faint dampness of air too long confined. She stood still, letting her legs remember how to bear her weight. The headache pulsed in her skull with every beat of her heart.

One step. Then another.

She obeyed herself, slow and cautious. Her fingers trailed along the bedside table until they slipped away into empty space. She extended her hands into the dark, searching for the next surface, and found the wall sooner than expected. It was close—closer than comfort allowed. Flat and cold beneath her palm. She let it guide her forward.

It was too dark to see, so she used her other senses to move towards the door.

The rain thundered louder here, as though the wall itself carried its weight. She tried to imagine the world beyond it—streets? A forest? Empty fields? She could not say. The sound of water was all there was.

Her breath echoed too loud in her ears as she took another step, then another. The boards creaked faintly under her, brittle with age. She flinched at the sound, though there was no one here to hear it. At least—she thought there was no one.

Her fingers brushed something else. Not wall this time, but wood set differently: vertical, solid, unbroken. A door. Finally.

She paused, pressing her forehead lightly against it, the surface cool against her heated skin. Beyond this barrier lay… what? Light, perhaps. Or more dark. Answers—or worse, more questions.

Her hand hovered over the wood, uncertain. She let her palm rest there, tracing its grain, the small imperfections worn by time. Her nails scraped lightly across the surface. The sound was almost lost beneath the storm.

She found the handle by accident, her fingers closing around cold metal. The sensation startled her, sharp and real, grounding her in the moment. She tightened her grip.

For a breath she hesitated, heart thudding, her body taut with the weight of possibility. She almost turned back, almost sank down to the floor to surrender again to the dark. But the thought of the bed—its narrowness, its silence—was unbearable.

She twisted the handle.

The latch gave way with a reluctant click. The door creaked as it opened, the sound brittle and long, carrying into the unknown.

She stepped forward, into whatever waited beyond.
The door swung wider, and her eyes adjusted to a vast, dimly lit room. Shadows stretched across wooden beams, broken only by the orange glow of a small fireplace. In front of it, on a low couch, a man sat waiting—silent, unmoving—his gaze fixed directly on her.

——