⸻ You were there — not arriving, not leaving, simply there, in a corridor that seemed endless, though it was only as long as your shadow. The air clung to you as if it had been waiting centuries just to brush against your skin. Every breath you took was stolen from the dust of forgotten voices, voices that had no mouths, only echoes. The floor beneath you was not wood, not stone — it was memory pressed so tightly together it had turned solid, and when you stepped, it groaned like a violin string pulled to breaking. Each step you made tore something invisible, something that hissed but did not die. You lifted your hand — not with purpose, but because the silence demanded a gesture — and in that hand there was nothing but trembling light, the kind of light that does not illuminate but exposes, showing not objects, not people, but the cracks that run through existence itself. It was unbearable, yet you carried it as though you had always been chosen for this task. And around you — walls, or were they breathing skins? They shifted when you looked at them, tightened when you drew near, released a sigh each time you turned away. You thought you were alone, but it was clear: the place was watching you, waiting for you to pronounce a word that had never been spoken. You did not speak. Instead, your body became the sentence. The tilt of your head, the curve of your hand, the way your breath caught halfway and refused to leave your throat — all of it was read, all of it was inscribed into the marrow of that place. You were not visitor. You were scripture. And there — in that unbearable moment — you understood nothing. And yet, the not-understanding was larger than knowing could ever be. It pressed itself into your ribs, it hummed in your blood, it made your silence sound like a thousand organs swelling. You felt seen not by eyes, but by time itself — as if it bent around you, whispering: you are here, and here is infinite.