Expelled Souls

The silence left behind

I wandered through the hospital halls, the emptiness around me gnawing at my soul. Every step I took echoed in the silent corridors, reminding me of the void Noah left behind. I kept telling myself he’d come back. He had to. He couldn’t be gone—not like that. Not after everything.

But with each passing moment, that hope felt thinner, more like a lie I was feeding myself to keep from falling apart.

I roamed aimlessly, my mind on autopilot, trying to make sense of it all. I spent hours in the hospital’s archives, searching through old medical records and files that blurred in front of my tear-filled eyes. It wasn’t really about finding answers anymore—it was about keeping busy, distracting myself from the cold, hollow reality that Noah was gone. And that it might have been my fault.

Was he “forgotten” like that old man had warned? The thought made me feel sick. I rubbed my arms, as if that could shake away the feeling of emptiness that gnawed at me.

I thought I knew loneliness before, but this—this was different. It was like part of me had been ripped away. I missed him in a way that scared me. The silence was suffocating, the space he once filled now a heavy, unbearable absence. My chest felt tight, my eyes stinging as I blinked back tears. I refused to cry. Not again.

"He’ll come back," I whispered to the empty hallway, my voice barely more than a breath. "He has to… he can’t just be gone."

But deep down, I wasn’t sure if I believed that anymore.

I found myself standing outside the room where my body lay, my feet dragging me here on autopilot. I hated seeing it—myself—trapped like that. Lifeless. It didn’t even feel like me anymore. I stared at the pale figure on the bed, hooked up to machines that beeped steadily, keeping me alive in some clinical, distant way.

Then, I heard the sharp click of heels approaching. My mother entered the room, her face cold, eyes scanning over my body without any warmth or emotion. My stomach twisted. The person I had always loved, always tried to please, looked at me as if I were a stranger. As if I were a burden.

"You deserve this," she said, her voice as sharp as a knife. "Always sneaking around, always doing things you shouldn’t. A nuisance. That’s what you’ve always been."

I stared at her, the words sinking deep, cutting through me like shards of glass. I’d always believed that, beneath her coldness, there was some love there, some hidden care. But now, with those words hanging between us, I wasn’t so sure.

“Was I… really such a bad kid?” I whispered, barely able to get the words out. They caught in my throat, trembling with the weight of years of doubt.

My mother crossed her arms, eyes narrowing. “You never knew when to stop. Always pushing, always causing trouble. What did you expect? You brought this on yourself.”

I felt the ground fall away beneath me, the weight of her words pressing down on my chest. Was she right? Was this all my fault? Had I been so unbearable, so impossible, that I had somehow deserved this?

She turned and left, the door closing softly behind her, leaving me standing there in silence. My heart pounded in my chest, tears stinging at my eyes again, but I refused to let them fall. I couldn’t cry anymore. I had to stay strong. I had to figure this out.

But the anger inside me grew, bubbling up from the pit of my stomach until I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I glared at the body lying on the bed, my body. How could it feel so foreign, so… not me?

"Why can’t I remember anything?!" I shouted, my voice raw with frustration. "Why can’t I figure out what happened?!"

I hated it. Hated how helpless I was, how broken I felt. How everything seemed to be falling apart, and I couldn’t even piece together the most important thing—what had happened to me. What had happened to Noah.

Tears streamed down my face as I stared at my lifeless body, my fists trembling with anger. “Why can’t I remember?!”

The frustration surged inside me, a white-hot rage that I couldn’t control. I raised my hand, trembling with the weight of my emotions, and slapped my comatose face.

The moment my hand connected with the cool skin of my body, everything changed.

A jolt shot through me, like electricity surging through every nerve in my body. The world around me spun, the sterile walls of the hospital room warping, fading. It felt like I was being pulled under, dragged into a whirlpool I couldn’t escape. I gasped, trying to fight against it, but it was too strong.

---