Echoes in the Glass Room

I can’t tell anymore if the pain started yesterday… or years ago. It’s not sharp. It’s not loud. It’s just there—a dull weight pressing down on everything I think, everything I try to feel.

I want to wake up from this heaviness. I want to feel air that doesn’t taste like regret.

It’s silent around me, but not peaceful. The silence here is tight, like the air is listening. And when I move, I feel like I’m being followed. Not by footsteps—but by thoughts that don’t belong to me. Paranoia with a voice that sounds too much like mine.

I want to hide. I want to be alone.

But I am. Completely.

Still… I feel watched. Not by others. But by the part of me that never sleeps. The inner voice with no mercy. The one that remembers every wrong move I made.

My skin feels too tight. My heart beats in uneven bursts. I close my eyes.

And I fall—not into sleep, but into somewhere else.

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I open my eyes in a glass room. A place with no edges. Just reflections—endless copies of myself staring back. Some with tears, some with rage, some with blank, empty stares.

The floor cracks beneath me with every step, but never fully breaks. Above me? Ropes made of light. Thin, glowing threads suspended from nothing.

Some flicker. Some blaze.

I reach for one. The moment I touch it, the room shifts. The mirrors warp into shifting walls, forming a tunnel. I move through it, led only by instinct, by desperation.

As I walk, the walls shimmer with images. Memories. Mistakes I thought I buried. Choices I pretend I didn’t make.

“Was this the path I needed? Or just another trap?”

I don’t know. But stopping feels worse than moving.

Then, the floor opens beneath me again. I drop fast—heart pounding, arms flailing—

And land softly in a new place.

It’s a garden. But not beautiful.

The plants are made of glass. The trees hum like machines. The wind feels programmed, artificial. Too perfect. Too still.

It feels… wrong.

Still, I sit. For a moment, the pain lessens. The colors soothe me. I pretend it’s real.

But deep down, I know this peace is a trick.

Soon, the sky glitches—pixels breaking apart, fading in and out. The plants start to wither, not naturally, but like someone pressed a delete key.

I look around. A giant door stands in the distance.

I run toward it, my lungs burning. As I reach it, the handle vanishes.

Instead, a ladder drops from the sky—leading back into the unknown.

I don’t want to go. I want to rest. I want this to be the end.

But the pain is creeping in again. The garden can’t hide it anymore.

I climb.

The ladder twists and coils, turning into a bridge. Then stairs. Then a hallway.

At the end—a mirror again.

Only this time, the reflection looks different. Tired, yes. Hurt, yes. But still standing.

The room fades.

I’m back. In the world I tried to escape.

But I brought something with me this time.

Not answers.

But the proof that I can keep going.

Even when it hurts.

Even when I’m scared.

Even when the maze resets.

Though the path twists and turns without end, there’s something different now — a quiet determination I didn’t have before. The weight of pain hasn’t vanished, but it’s less like a crushing boulder and more like a shadow that trails me.

I remember the broken threads, the glass garden, the endless mirrors. They weren’t just traps or illusions. They were tests — reflections of what I fear most, what I avoid.

Behind every cracked pane, I saw parts of myself I wish I could forget: failures, regrets, moments when I chose silence over truth. But I also saw resilience—faint sparks that refused to be snuffed out.

I press forward, step by step. The mirror walls begin to shimmer less, and the glass floor beneath me feels more solid, more real.

A soft light appears ahead—warm, inviting. Not blinding like the harsh spotlight of guilt, but gentle, like a candle flickering in a dark room.

I move toward it, unsure if it’s safety or another illusion. As I near, the light reveals a figure—someone I know, or maybe myself—smiling softly.

“Keep going,” the voice says, calm and steady.

I want to believe it. I want to hold on to that hope.

The ladder I climbed earlier isn’t gone. It stretches upward into a sky that’s no longer pixelated but filled with stars—real stars, shining distant and true.

I climb again, this time slower, steadier. With each rung, I feel something shift inside me: fear loosens its grip, and I remember what it feels like to breathe without trembling.

At the top, there’s no perfect ending—no sudden peace or all-knowing clarity. But there’s space. Space to be tired, space to be afraid, space to try again tomorrow.

I’m still walking the maze, yes. But I’m no longer lost inside it.

Maybe the real journey isn’t to find the exit.

Maybe it’s to learn to carry the light, even when the walls close in.

Because sometimes, moving forward is the bravest thing we can do.