I placed the letter on the desk, interlaced my fingers, and rested them on my chest. Then I tilted my head slightly to the left, letting it lean against my shoulder. A heavy silence hung over the room—so dense that it almost felt as though the walls themselves were listening to the thoughts running through my mind.
Fatigue had finally caught up with me after a long day of restless thinking. Slowly, I rose and walked toward the bed. The moment I lay down, a deep weariness washed over me, as though my entire body had finally surrendered to exhaustion.
I closed my eyes, trying to let sleep claim me. Yet something weighed heavily on my chest. Perhaps it was the letter I had written only moments before… or perhaps it was the memories that refused to leave me alone.
Just as I was about to drift into sleep, I heard a faint sound.
It was a low, broken moan—like the painful breath of someone struggling under an unbearable weight.
My eyes opened halfway as I tried to determine where the sound had come from. But I could not. The moan echoed strangely through the room, as if it came from every corner at once. At one moment I thought it was behind the door, the next beneath the window, and then it seemed to come from somewhere very near my bed.
I tried to rise and investigate, but exhaustion had completely overtaken my body. All I could do was sigh softly and turn onto my side.
I told myself it was probably the same cat that had been wandering through the yard on the previous nights.
The thought eased my mind slightly, and before long I sank into a deep, heavy sleep… a sleep so profound that I had no sense of what might have happened afterward.
I woke up at around nine in the morning.
Sunlight filtered through the window in thin golden lines, casting pale shapes across the wooden floor. I sat up on the bed for a moment, staring blankly ahead while my mind slowly returned to wakefulness.
Then suddenly I remembered.
Today was my first day at work.
I rose quickly. My application had finally been accepted, and I was to begin working as an assistant at a company that specialized in sewing sails for ships in the city of Oxford. I had not expected to be accepted so quickly, but the need for work had pushed me to cling to this opportunity with all the determination I had.
I hurried to the washroom and washed myself quickly before returning to my room. Walking to the wardrobe, I took out a clean set of clothes and changed in haste, all the while thinking about the day that awaited me.
For a brief moment I stood before the mirror, straightening the collar of my shirt. Then I grabbed my coat and prepared to leave.
As I was closing the door behind me, a sudden thought struck me.
My pipe.
I had left it on the table the night before.
With a quiet sigh, I stepped back into the room. The pipe was exactly where I had left it, resting on the edge of the table beside the small tobacco tin. I picked them up and slipped them into my pocket, as I had grown accustomed to carrying them wherever I went.
But then something else caught my attention.
I stopped abruptly, staring at the surface of the table.
The sheet of paper on which I had written the letter was still there… but it was not as I had left it.
It lay open, turned face down.
I took a step closer, a strange uneasiness creeping into my chest. I clearly remembered folding it before going to sleep. In fact, I was certain I had folded it neatly into four parts, just as I always did with my letters.
Slowly, I reached out and picked up the sheet.
I turned it between my fingers, examining it carefully.
"This is very strange…" I murmured under my breath.
Who could have opened it?
No one had entered my room. I was certain the door had remained closed the entire night.
My thoughts began to race as I slowly turned the paper over.
The moment my eyes fell upon the page… the blood in my veins seemed to freeze.
Every word I had written was gone.
Not a single trace remained.
It was as if someone had erased them completely.
But the page was not empty.
In the very center… a single sentence had been written.
A sentence I had not written.
The letters looked hurried… almost desperate.
And when I read them—
my heart skipped a beat.
To be continued…