short fiction · 2026-10-08

Echoes in the Absence

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

The marble corridor stretched ahead, silent save for the soft tread of my shoes. I paused, listening. No breath, no murmur beyond the vaulted doors. I stepped forward, and the sound returned—a clear, hollow echo that bounced off the walls and came back to me, slightly delayed, as if the hallway itself were holding its breath before answering. I smiled, convinced I was alone. Then a faint click echoed from the far end, a latch perhaps, or the shift of air. I froze. The next step I took produced no echo at all; the sound was swallowed, muffled, as though the corridor had leaned in to listen and decided to keep the noise to itself. I waited, heart quiet, and when the silence stretched long enough to feel like another presence, I lifted my foot again. This time the echo returned, tentative, as if testing whether I still believed I was unheard. I walked on, each step a negotiation between the desire to be heard and the fear of being overheard, the architecture responding only when my attention turned inward.