Cocoa had always believed rooms remembered people.
Not in the haunted way—no whispers or cold drafts—but in the way the walls seemed to soften around her when she sat on the floor with her back against the bed, knees drawn close, book open and forgotten in her lap. Her room had learned her silences. It understood her better than most people ever had.
She was an only child, and silence had raised her alongside her mother.
The room was small, warm-toned, and lived-in. Shelves sagged under the weight of books read and reread. A speaker by the window hummed softly, music low enough to be felt more than heard. Clothes were folded neatly—not because she was tidy, but because disorder made her thoughts scatter. Cocoa liked control, even when she didn't have words for it yet.
Outside, the world still pretended to be normal.
Inside, Cocoa breathed.
Growing up, she'd had friends—real ones. The kind you only make when you're too young to be afraid of being yourself. Honey had been loud and bossy and two years older, always dragging Cocoa into games she claimed she didn't want to play. Timmy had followed Honey everywhere, tall even as a boy, quiet-eyed, always watching. And Ayo—small, stubborn, endlessly curious—had rounded out the group like an exclamation mark.
They were siblings. Cocoa wasn't.
Their mother employed hers for a time, and for those years, Cocoa had belonged somewhere outside her room. She remembered afternoons filled with laughter, scraped knees, stolen snacks, and Timmy's shadow always close by—never crowding, never distant.
Then one day, it ended.
Adults stopped talking. Schedules changed. The visits stopped. Childhood, it turned out, could be dismantled quietly, without anyone asking the child for permission.
Cocoa retreated inward. She learned to love things that didn't leave—books, music, movement. Dance in the privacy of her room. Feelings she didn't name. Curiosity she didn't share.
Her room became enough.
Until the world began to starve.
It started slowly. News reports whispered about crop failures, supply chain issues, rising prices. Cocoa's mother frowned more often, counted money twice, spoke less. People lined up longer at stores. Shelves emptied faster.
Then famine stopped being a word on a screen and became a presence.
Cocoa noticed the change the night her mother went to bed without dinner.
That was the night Cocoa stood in front of her bedroom door and pressed her forehead against the wood.
"I just want to go somewhere else," she whispered—not to God exactly, not to anyone in particular. Just… away.
She reached for the handle with her right hand.
The birthmark on her palm—dark, soft, almost like fine hair beneath the skin—pressed against the metal.
The door opened.
But it didn't open into the hallway.
Cool air brushed her face, carrying a scent she had never known—earthy, sharp, alive. Moonlight spilled in, wrong and beautiful, illuminating tall grass and a sky unfamiliar with stars that burned too bright.
Cocoa froze.
Her heart did not race. It stilled.
She closed the door.
Stood there breathing.
Then, slowly, she opened it again.
The world beyond waited, unchanged.
She did not step through that night.
Cocoa had always been cautious. Brave in thought, careful in action. She closed the door, locked it, and slid down against it until she was sitting on the floor, shaking quietly with the kind of laughter that came from disbelief.
Her room did not explain itself.
Over the next weeks, the world worsened. Riots. Blackouts. Borders closing. And each time Cocoa opened her door with her right hand—each time she wished, truly wished—it opened somewhere else.
A forest. A field. A rocky plain beneath twin moons.
Always empty. Always waiting.
She told no one at first.
When disaster finally forced honesty, it arrived wearing familiar faces.
They knocked on the door during a heatwave blackout—Honey first, sharper and taller than Cocoa remembered, eyes tired but burning. Ayo behind her, grown and restless. And Timmy—
Timmy was different.
Tall now. Broad-shouldered. A presence that filled the doorway without trying. His face had sharpened into something undeniably handsome, but his eyes were the same—steady, observant, landing on Cocoa as if the years between them folded inward.
"Cocoa," he said, her name low, like he'd been holding it.
The world collapsed faster after that.
Both families moved in together because fear did not care about pride. Space grew tight. Food grew scarce. Nights grew loud with distant sirens and closer arguments. And in the middle of it all, Cocoa stood before her bedroom door and told them the truth.
They didn't believe her.
Until she opened it.
The first step into the new world felt like breaking a rule she had lived by all her life.
But once crossed, there was no un-crossing it.
They learned quickly. Faster than others. The land beyond the door was dangerous, yes—but fertile. They planted. They built. They defended. Cocoa learned the rules of her power the hard way: it answered desperation, not convenience. Prayer, not curiosity. And only through her.
Only with her right hand.
Timmy stayed close during those early days. Too close sometimes. Not crowding—but aware. His gaze followed her when she moved, sharpened when others spoke too loudly around her. When he touched her—passing tools, steadying her on uneven ground—it lingered just long enough to make her breath catch.
She noticed.
He noticed that she noticed.
Nothing was said.
The world beyond the door grew darker even as their small corner of it began to bloom. Survivors appeared—lost, frightened, displaced not by Cocoa's choice but by fate. She helped when she could. Carefully. Never opening the door wider than she could hold.
Her room was not salvation.
It was hers.
And as Cocoa stood one evening at the threshold—warm light behind her, strange stars ahead—Timmy stepped close enough that she could feel the heat of him at her back.
"Whatever happens," he said quietly, "I'm here."
Cocoa didn't turn around.
She reached for the door with her right hand and stepped forward.
The room followed.