Silent Room:

The room come to be tiled from floor to ceiling, every rectangular a light grey that regarded to swallow mild as opposed to reflect it. No home windows, no doorways seen from the inner—exceptional the faint hum of air that carried no heady scent, no warmth. It changed into a place designed to erase sound, to erase presence. A silent room.

earlier than everything glance, it regarded sterile, almost scientific. however the longer one stayed, the extra the tiles observed out themselves. Hairline cracks shaped patterns that resembled maps, veins, or possibly messages. a few tiles bulged slightly, as though a few component pressed from inside the back of. Others appeared less warm to the touch, as despite the fact that they were changed more currently. diffused differences, however sufficient to unsettle truely everyone who determined.

Jonah were delivered proper right here with out clarification. He remembered the corridor outside—dimly lit, covered with cameras—and then the heavy door closing at the back of him. Now, he come to be on my own. His footsteps echoed faintly, then died as if swallowed thru the partitions. He attempted speaking, but his voice got here again muffled, distorted, as even though the room refused to hold phrases.

He sat at the floor, tracing the grout strains along with his finger. The silence pressed toward him, heavier than any sound. He idea he heard a faint tapping, however when he held his breath, it vanished. possibly it became his pulse in his ears. perhaps no longer.

Hours—or minutes, time became not possible to degree—passed. Jonah started to be aware styles within the tiles. One section near the corner regarded darker, as despite the fact that stained. He pressed in opposition to it, and the tile shifted barely. behind it, he idea he heard movement. A whisper, too faint to be real. He pulled back, coronary heart racing. The room have become not empty. It became listening.

The silence have become oppressive. He tried to hum, to interrupt it, but the sound died right away. He shouted, but the echo became incorrect, bending once more at him like a voice not his own. The tiles appeared to vibrate, subtly, as although soaking up his words. He stopped talking altogether.

Then got here the subtle changes. The grout lines appeared to arrange themselves while he seemed away. A crack that had been vertical now ran diagonal. A bulge in the wall shifted closer. Jonah started out to doubt his memory. changed into the room changing, or end up he losing his thoughts?

He pressed his ear to the wall. on the start, no longer something. Then, faintly, a rhythm: faucet, pause, faucet‑tap, pause. Morse code? He didn’t recognise. however it changed into deliberate. someone—or some thing—modified into on the opposite aspect. He tapped again, mimicking the rhythm. Silence determined. Then, a unmarried faucet in respond.

The tiles grew less warm. Jonah’s breath fogged in the air, despite the fact that no vent emerge as visible. He subsidized into the center of the room, searching the walls. The cracks widened, imperceptibly in the beginning, then more in reality. He concept he noticed a watch staring thru the distance. He blinked, and it end up long past.

The silence deepened. It have become not absence of sound but presence of some thing else—something ready. Jonah determined out the room become now not supposed to contain him. It changed into intended to have a look at him. every movement, every word absorbed through way of the tiles, every silence recorded. He turned into no longer on my own. He was the take a look at.

He attempted to sleep, however the floor become too bloodless, the silence too loud. goals came besides—desires of tiled corridors stretching with no end in sight, each room containing a few other version of himself, trapped, equipped. He woke with a begin, uncertain if he had ever simply slept.

The tapping again, louder now. He pressed his hand closer to the wall, and the tile shifted again. A crack widened, revealing darkness beyond. He leaned closer, and a whisper slipped through: “not by myself.”

Jonah staggered lower back. The room was not silent. The tiles trembled, faintly, like breath. He determined out the fact: the room was alive. The tiles were its skin, the silence its voice. And he changed into inner it, a part of it, absorbed into its countless listening.

He screamed, however the sound have become swallowed complete. The tiles pulsed as soon as, like a heartbeat. Then the room modified into silent again.