The sky outside had begun to bruise with twilight, bleeding slow shades of violet and rust across the horizon. The sun sagged lower, dragging the last rays of warmth behind the mountains. Inside the room, stale air clung to the peeling walls.
Echo lay motionless on the narrow bed, staring blankly at the cracked ceiling. He had been like that for hours. An old, dust-choked lightbulb dangled above him, twitching faintly with dying energy. Its flicker cast brief shadows across the room.
He turned his gaze toward the window, watching as the city's colors faded into inky blue.
"... It's night already?"
Footsteps creaked slowly on the wooden stairs outside
"Milo? .... Maybe. Not sure."
He straightened his posture, the thin mattress creaking beneath him. His eyes returned to the ceiling, but the flickering bulb waned, the room's edges melting into darkness as the light bled out. Moonlight was all that remains.
Frustration coiled in his chest, tightening its grip as sleep slipped farther from reach. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing exhaustion to drag him under, but the night held him captive.
When he opened them again, the room was pitch black — except for two glowing yellow eyes hovering just above him.
"Hello. Nice to see you again."
A sudden, crushing pressure seized Echo's throat — "he" was strangling him before any warning could reach his mind. Panic surged through his body as he struggled to breathe, limbs flailing in desperation. His hands shot up, fingers clawing at the grip tightening around his neck. His eyes bulged, blood rushing to his temples. His mouth gaped, gasping for air.
"Help…"
The smile from that face twisted cruelly as the grip tightened. Everything slipped away.
...
"Hey. Wake up."
Echo's eyes cracked open, vision blurred. The room was still cloaked in shadows, but a flickering glow danced across the ceiling. His head throbbed faintly. Milo stood a few feet away, clutching a stubby candle in one hand, its flame barely holding against the draft. Sheets of paper littered the floor around him, some half-stepped on, others curling from the moisture in the air.
"Time to work," Milo said with authority, ignoring the fact it was still pitch black outside.
Echo sat up slowly, rubbing the side of his head with a groggy wince.
"... Huh?"
"What do you mean 'huh'? Say that again and you're not getting a single penny out of me!"
He spun on his heel, surveying the room. The candlelight threw his shadow wildly across the walls. His fake mustache was hanging off one side of his lip, but he caught it mid-slip and pressed it back in place with a sniff and a practiced cough.
"Where's that tenant? Did you move him? I told you not to touch his side of the floor!"
He stepped forward and shoved the candle into Echo's hands.
"Alright, I'm leaving. Let me be clear — finish everything before sunrise, or the deal's off."
He disappeared down the corridor, the slap of his small feet echoing through the bones of the old bookstore.
Echo sat there for a moment longer, staring at the tiny flame dancing in front of him. The candlelight cast long shadows on the walls and on his face, which still bore the faint impression of fingers around his throat.
"What just happened?"
He turned his head toward the window. No stars. No star nor moon to be seen outside. A wet glimmer caught his eye. Water pooled across the floorboards, trailing toward his feet. He'd left the sink running.
With a quiet groan, he stood, lifting the candle. Its flame wobbled with his steps as he moved to the sink. At the sink, he turned the knob tight. The metal groaned. The last few drops fell, one by one, into the basin. He turned back toward the room.
Sheets of paper lay strewn across the floor, curling at the corners from the damp air. He stooped down, gathering them in a rough stack — half-crumpled receipts, old envelopes, ink-smeared letters that looked half-readable.
He placed them gently on the mattress and set the candle beside them. The flame's jittery glow made the pages twitch faintly.
He sank onto the floor, legs folded beneath him, arms resting on his knees. His eyes lingered on the pile before him, expression unreadable in the shifting light.
His reflection in the mirror — a faint silhouette, nearly devoured by shadow — watched him from the far side of the room.
He picked up the top sheet from the stack, tilting it toward the candlelight. Scrawled across it was a mess of handwriting. The flickering flame only made it harder to read.
"What am I supposed to do with this?"
Beneath the letter: a plain, yellowed sheet. A dusty gold pen rested on top, its surface dulled by time. Echo reached for it, turning it slowly between his fingers.
"Maybe… they want me to write something."
He set the first page aside and laid the blank one in front of him, pressing its creases flat with quiet care. For a long moment, he simply stared at the pen. It happened a while.
When he finally gripped it, his hand tensed. He tried holding it the way he thought he used to — fingers too tight, awkward. The line came out too thin. He adjusted his grip, again — too loose. The pen skipped across the paper.
Frustration built in his chest. He kept shifting — different fingers, different angles, each attempt either worse or barely better than the last. He scratched out meaningless lines and crooked symbols.
After several failed attempts and scratched lines, he paused. Echo adjusted his posture, let the pen rest lightly against the side of his middle finger, pinched it between his thumb and index finger, and curled his hand into a shape that felt… familiar. The pen finally settled. The tension in his wrist eased.
"There we go..."
He glanced at the letter again, trying to mimic its loops and crooked forms as best he could. He leaned closer, slowly copying it down onto the blank page. His handwriting staggered, slanted in some places and bloated in others. Some words overlapped, others drifted upward like they were trying to escape the lines. By the end, it was barely readable.
He sat back and grimaced.
"Man… looks like some kind of alien trying to write Spanish. Anyway…"
With a small shrug, he stacked both the original and the copy together and slid them to the side. The gold pen he tucked into his jacket pocket — his only real possession now, aside from his coins.
Beneath those papers lay another envelope. Older, its corners yellowed and curling. Echo unfolded it carefully. Inside was a letter, flowing script written in deep ink;
"Venera,
"You always move first, but I didn't."
Arthur Nerkwick."
...
"That's it? That was fast.... Man, I was so hyped up. That got boring fast."
Echo set the previous letter aside. Another page slid free, nudged upward. Two full sheets. Lines packed edge to edge with tight, looping handwriting. Every curve was deliberate, the ink pressed deep. A formal tone rippled beneath the surface;
"In the Third Turning, before record became calendar, there was the Laughing Silence. Some say he was a god. Others say he was a
mistake."
"He moved between dreams and left no name. A spoon inside a tree,
a child speaking backwards, a crow that told you your future."
"Three kings claimed they had seen him, but all three went mad before finishing their
stories. One vanished inside his own closet. One drowned in dry sand. One forgot what
death meant and has yet to stop talking."
"The Laughing Silence never laughs. It only waits, where time folds and logic sleeps.
Some say you only see him after the punchline. But never the joke."
He squinted.
"…Okay."
"He is not worshiped, not directly. His altar is absurdity. His followers are accidents. He was born without time, shaped by laughter that no one heard. A demon, an angel, maybe — but one who dressed himself in riddles. They say he once stole a cathedral just to see if anyone noticed."
"To ask his name is to lose your own. To forget him is to dream about him."
He is not real.
He is not real.
He is not real.
He is not—
The line cut off. Echo leaned back slowly, brows furrowed.
"What is this?"
He glanced toward the candle. The flame twitched violently for a second.
He set the letter down, rubbing his temple.
"I have to write all of this? I'm out of paper..."
Echo swept the stack of papers aside. A marriage invitation in dusty red ink crumpled beneath his elbow. A child's drawing of a house with legs and too many windows drifted. One paper was just a list of soup ingredients, written with near-religious devotion. Another seemed to be a poem, scratched out entirely in symbols. Through the window, the sky had shifted. A soft, dreamlike blue stretched across the rooftops.
"Man… that was a long night."
Still seated on the floor, Echo pulled the stack back toward him, flipping through each sheet with glazed focus. Notes, receipts, odd fragments of lives he didn't recognize. But one page made his eyes pause.
Aurelian.
The name stood sharp on the page, written with dark ink near the margin of what looked like a financial document. The rest was indecipherable. He squinted, scanning pages. Another paper slipped free — modern.
A folded birthday letter printed on bright, glossy paper. Balloon illustrations floated across the edges, all smiling. The font was cheerful. The ink hadn't aged a day.
"Happy Birthday to me~!
Come by the house around the fifth turning of the bell. We'll have cake and a maze and dancing dolls!
Everyone's invited. Don't forget your candles!
Oh, and I'm turning 376091—"
He blinked. A young girl hunging, swinging. Everything's red.
He jolted, nearly knocking over the candle. Heart racing. He looked back down.
"Oh, and I'm turning 12."
The candle flicker again. Footsteps echoed down the hallway. Echo turned his head toward the sound.
Milo stepped into the room, now lit by the pale morning sky. His coat was slightly crooked, and his fake mustache had slid halfway down his cheek, but he didn't seem to notice.
"You done?"
He strode over, scooped the stack of papers in his arms with practiced chaos, and gave a satisfied nod. On his way out, he nearly tripped over nothing — his foot catching on the air itself. He caught his balance and muttered, "This floor's haunted," like it was a routine complaint. And he was gone again, vanishing back down the hall.
Echo leaned forward and blew out the candle. A thin trail of smoke rose into the quiet room. He set it gently on the floor and stood, bones aching from sitting too long.
He lowered himself onto the mattress, back flat, eyes drifting up toward the cracked ceiling.
"I'm sweating again…"
His eyelids dropped, sleep pulled him. From the corner of the room, across the mirror's surface, two faint yellow eyes stared through the glass.