I Woke Up In My Own Story

The first thing I noticed was the silence. Not the kind of silence that drifts through a dark room at midnight, broken by the hum of a refrigerator or the sigh of an old house settling. No, this silence was unnatural - a silence that swallowed even the sound of my own heartbeat.

I opened my eyes.

The ceiling above me wasn't the cracked plaster of my apartment, but vaulted stone, grey and damp with age. Shadows stretched across it like veins, illuminated by a pale light that seeped from nowhere. My first thought was that I was dreaming, but then the cold pressed against my skin, sharp and unforgiving, and I knew dreams were never this precise.

I sat up on a hard wooden cot, the creak echoing like a scream in the hollow chamber. My hands shook. My breath misted in the air. My mind spun through fragments of memory - the late night at my desk, the empty coffee mug, the glow of my laptop screen. I had been writing. Yes, that much I knew. Writing a story.

But this... this was the story.

The realization hit me like a hammer.

I was inside it.