Year: ???

In the cool darkness of the room, the boy thinks he may as well be as good as dead.

Under any other circumstances, a voice in this dark place may be salvation; but knowing for sure he's trapped and all alone, the boy had since classified it as the disembodied voice of a ghost.

Sometimes the little voice—a lone girl—calls for some attention—help! or, anyone there?—but mostly it's just something inaudible, or the quiet sobs that fill the quiet hours. Strangely enough, it makes him feel not so alone.

On the fifth day of hearing the voice, he finally snaps. It's been a long day. He'd been shoved back here only to hear the screams of the girl's voice, begging for aid. He doesn't need the ghost to be wailing at him; he has enough problems to deal with and he's had just about enough of the possibility that he's simply going insane, that the voice is a mere figment of his imagination.

Standing up on shaky legs in the faint darkness of the room, the boy finally decides to address his own deteriorating mental state. He faces the dark panel on one of the walls with the single glass door to his prison. The other three is a solid white; he's caged in except for the one-sided window that he himself isn't able to peer from inside of the room.

"Who are you?" His voice is surprisingly calm. Perhaps he'd overestimated his anger. Or is he in such a bad physical state that he cannot express anything anymore?

Surprisingly, the anxious cries stop.

He waits a beat, and, satisfied with the silence, begins to turn—

"What?" a voice, barely above a whisper. Close.

Maybe I am going insane. The boy proceeds to entertain the fact that the girl's voice in his head may respond by asking, "Where are you?"

Sure enough, the voice replies, almost too eagerly, "You can see me?"

The boy narrows his eyes. "No. But given that you're asking if I can see you instead of if I can hear you, you must be somewhere beyond this"—his palm touches the one-sided, tinted glass pane that can only be looked through from the other side—"thing here. And that can't be a good thing."

This close to the window that separates him from freedom, he can almost hear her soft, uneven breaths. It's as if she's just beyond that panel of glass. Besides his reflection on the dark and smooth surface, he imagines a silhouette of a girl—young but probably more in the mid-teen years. Since the surface is tinted, there is no way to see any color in the mirror image; the boy knows for sure he has short dark hair and once bright blue eyes, but everything else is also in similar shades of darkness that it's hard to make out anything in the reflection aside from the general image of himself. But he doesn't need it to know that his hair is beginning to turn into an entirely opposite color these days: white strands amid the dark base growing here and there.

When he looks hard enough, the reflection of his is joined by said girl of his imagination, far away—standing, full body in view and one arm hesitantly outstretched. She's in there, somewhere in the darkness of the reflection beyond the boy's own. But when he blinks, she's gone.

The boy can't even comprehend his own mind anymore. Was he so desperate for something in this Gods forsaken place that he'd imagined someone with such a vivid image? Details struck—a lean frame, hair beyond her shoulders, barely touching her chest... her head, with the tendency to tilt to the right. He shakes his head. Why is he profiling this unreal shadow?

Just when he's about to classify this as an illusion of his depravity of human interaction or the lack of his connection to the real world, the voice returns.

"What do you mean, not a good thing?"

He steps back, flinching despite himself. The boy feels his heart rate elevate, before he takes a few breaths to calm himself, reminding himself that the day is over, and the torture only begins the next day. An endless cycle. "If you're on the other side of this room," he says evenly, justifiably, "you're only here to..."

He stops. His mind won't let him finish, as flashes of what he's been through invades his space. Turning, the boy slumps down to the ground, his back facing the wall just below the tinted glass panel. He wants to be as far away as possible from those outside, those who will return and get him, hurt him—

But he can't move. He's no longer seeing the white prison of a room. The ringing in his ears starts, and doesn't stop. Placing his hands over his ears and his head, his skin tingles from the memory of being intruded—

"I'm not one of them," the voice says, trying to reach him.

Tears well in the boys' eyes, and he struggles to keep them away. He's long since learnt to shut out his emotions, all the pain, but this is like everything crashing in on him all at once.

The girl's voice tries again, this time gentler. "I'm not here to hurt you. I can't even reach you."

Her words still him. It takes him more than a few minutes to recompose. The girl doesn't push, she doesn't continue to speak. She just lets him have his space and allows him the silence he needs. Whether or not she knew exactly what to say—that her few words sufficient for a reassurance and simultaneously enough of a statement to garner further curiosity from him—the boy isn't sure. All he knows that it's just what he had needed to take a breather.

Suddenly, the boy feels like a complete fool. He'd lost his cool, letting his walls down and letting himself break in front of his own conjured companion. Like a young child in front of his a more mature senior figure, who'd reached out to him to comfort him. His body has yet to break despite all the pain, but his mind is now shattering enough to think up exactly what he needs in this lowest time of his.

Pitiful, the boy thinks bitterly, still leaning against the wall.

There are others like him of course, trapped in this establishment. But they're different, and he's always the one being isolated.

He almost laughed then, at the fact that he managed to console himself on his own.

The disembodied voice is just hovering behind and over him as the girl whispers, almost painfully, "I'm just as trapped as you are."

"Of course you are," the boy replies, but there's hardly any fight in him despite the pent up resentment for everything—this place, his growing insanity. "You are me. I made you. I thought you up."

"That's not—"

"An older version of me—as a girl," the boy muses, ignoring the voice in his head.

Yes, that's what she is. An imagination, another part of himself. The gender is questionable, but perhaps the more mature self of her or him—besides the cries for help—is an ideal version of who he wants to be. That's right.

She doesn't argue any further, conforming his suspicions.

He closes his eyes. There's nothing left. No anger, no sadness, no frustration. It's just him and his mind splitting into two.

Days pass easily, and the voice dwindles. Sometimes he can feel her close, but they never exchange thoughts again.

Occasionally though, she'll lend him some strength on his hardest days, whether it's through her soft comforting voice or with harsh remarks.

Once, the boy has grown so tired of imaginary older girl's presence that he tells her to fiddle back to wherever she'd originated from.

"I don't need another voice in my head!" he snaps.

She merely responds quietly, "I won't be leaving even if I can leave. It will be like giving up on someone who has already given up on himself, and you'll be as good as dead."

He doesn't respond to the very words he'd used for himself, vowing to never engage again, lest he shows how much he actually needs that voice. And eventually, he begins to question if she is an entity from another world instead of a fabrication of his own mind, because there is no way he will say something like that.

He can't see her, but he's pretty sure she can see him, a silent companion throughout all his lows.

But through it all, the voice that's barely there—this strange girl who may or may not be real at all—is the only thing that keeps him alive.

Even when his memory fades as he forces himself to forget his imprisonment and the pain that accompanies it, he pleads, "At least tell me who you are."

She is silent for once, and the boy nearly panics, thinking he might have lost this strange connection with this mysterious entity that has been—admittedly—by his side during his worst days, and when he's most alone.

But she must have seen his desperation for a reply, because she responds a moment later, "Can you promise me one thing?"

Her voice is a hard croak, and the boy had nearly forgotten how she'd came to be in the first place: just a young girl, who's obviously not too much older than him, somehow lost in her own way. After all, she'd been crying and begging for help before he'd addressed her—she must have thought no one can hear or see her. Perhaps she really is a ghost. He still doesn't see her now, but the fact they can communicate is enough proof that there is a connection between them. He thinks back to what she'd once said as he stands up to touch the glass lightly, and he thinks he hears a soft, surprised gasp from within or on the other side: I won't be leaving even if I can leave.

He feels bad that he never asked about her, while she's been with him this whole time, keeping him sane and alive.

"You're trapped, aren't you?" he asks, leaning his forehead against the cool glass surface that reflects only him. Dimly, he imagines her silhouette again, knees to her chest as she crouches in a corner. He adds in a whisper, "I'm sorry I never asked."

"That's okay," she says, and the boy thinks she must have moved closer, if that's possible. "And yes, I am trapped. I don't know where I am, or how I've gotten here. But I've almost figured it out."

The boy is now alarmed. "Y-you're leaving?"

"Not yet, no," she says hurriedly. "I mean it when I say I won't be leaving you. At least not yet. But I do have somewhere I need to be."

"You need to?" He tries to mask his disappointment, but his voice betrays him. She's been such a presence in his life that he cannot bear imagining her gone. Please don't leave me. Don't leave me in this place, don't let me do this alone.

As if sensing his fear, she asks again, "Can you promise me one thing?"

He blinks, realizing he hasn't answered her. He wonders what he can possibly provide her at all. He's in no position to make any promises, whatever the ask is. And yet he finds himself answering, "Of course."

"Please don't forget me." There's something in her voice. He can't see her, but it's almost as if he can feel her—the trepidation, the longing.

"What do you mean?" he asks, confused; but somehow, the boy is only focused on the fact that she may be drifting away any moment. Desperate, he asks again, "Who are you?"

Her reply faraway, it echoes in the empty room. "Lena. My name is Lena."