Here I was again, standing in front of another one of those doors that popped out of nowhere.
At least this time I wasn't behind Cael when he stopped walking. I was learning. Dying really did teach you things.
Cael's question echoed in my head again. How did I do it the first time? Did I need to cry again? Ugh, I didn't want to cry again.
The door opened, and Cael stepped through. I followed right after him.
As soon as I crossed over, I felt it.
The silence. It felt wrong.
It swallowed everything. Like the air itself had been muted, forbidding any sound.
Even my footsteps didn't sound right. I looked down just to make sure I was still walking, because I could feel the steps but I couldn't hear them.
I didn't like it.
I really didn't like it.
I glanced around. The room was bare. No windows. No anything. Just a wide empty space and, in the middle of it, a man standing perfectly still.
He wasn't old, not exactly. Not young either. He looked like one of those people whose age gets erased by too much life. His face was calm in a way that felt unnatural.
He was too still.
Like he had gone quiet so long ago that even his body forgot how to ask for anything.
I looked at Cael. He looked at the file in his hand.
Oh no.
I already knew that face.
He was about to do his case number, blah blah thing again.
"Deceased Case Number—"
I threw my hand up at him right away.
"Wait."
Cael stopped mid-recitation and looked at me with that expression of his that always said, You are very close to being a problem.
I pointed at the man in the middle of the room.
"Not yet," I whispered, though I wasn't sure whispering even mattered here. "You'll scare him."
Cael's brows moved just a little, but for once he didn't argue.
I turned back to the man.
He was still staring ahead, not at us, not through us either. Just ahead.
I took a careful step closer.
I decided to move closer to the man, making sure I didn't make a sound that might startle him. When I finally drew near, what I saw startled me instead.
"Um… Sir? Can you see me?" I asked.
No response.
I waved a hand a little in front of him, not enough to be rude, just enough to test if he could see me.
For a moment, I caught a flicker of something in his eyes.
Oh.
So he was here.
He just didn't want to be.
Or is it my imagination? My gaze wandered around the room. It was still silent, and boredom crept in. Had I missed the previous soul in the last room? With nothing else to do, I paced the four corners, uncertain of my next move.
I don't think crying would work.
I glanced back at Cael and lowered my voice. "Does this job have a time limit?"
Cael leaned a little closer, which, for him, already counted as dramatic.
"No."
I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding.
"Oh, wow. That was better." I muttered. "Because I have no idea what I was doing."
Cael looked at me in that same tired way of his, as if to say, That has never stopped you before.
Fair.
I turned back to the man again.
Still nothing. Still that awful quiet.
He was the opposite of the woman before.
That one was all fire.
I moved a little closer and stood beside him, not too near. Just enough to say I was there.
I sighed. This sighing was becoming contagious, I noticed.
"Okay," I said. "Since you are clearly not in the mood to talk, I'll do it for both of us."
Nothing.
I nodded to myself. "That was fine. I was used to it."
I glanced at him from the corner of my eye.
"You know, I don't actually like silence that much. People think silence is peaceful. Sometimes it is. But sometimes it just makes you hear all the things you were trying not to think about."
His face didn't move.
But something in the room did.
Not a sound. Not exactly. Just that strange feeling you get when someone is listening even though they haven't looked at you yet.
So I kept going.
"My name is Marisol," I said. "And the tall one over there with the permanent bad mood is Cael."
Behind me, I felt Cael's stare land on the back of my head.
I pretended not to notice.
"I don't know your name," I continued, "so until you tell me otherwise, I'll just call you..."
I paused and looked around the room.
Then I looked back at him.
"Peace."
"Do you like it?"
His eyes blinked once.
That was more reaction than I'd gotten so far, so of course I got encouraged.
"See? There you go," I said. "We're making progress. Very tiny progress, but I'll take it."
I started pacing a little because standing still inside that room made me feel like I might turn into furniture.
"You look calm & peaceful," I said. "At least on the outside. Quiet. Still. No shouting, no crying." I pressed a hand to my chest. "Honestly, kind of rude. I already had one soul scream at me. So, I prepared myself."
He must have heard me. I knew he had.
So I spoke again, more softly this time.
"But this doesn't really feel like peace."
That got him.
Not much. Just a shift in his jaw. A tightening.
I stopped pacing.
"Sorry," I said, more quietly now. "That probably sounded too direct. It's just... I don't know. Peace is supposed to feel light, right? But this room doesn't feel light."
His fingers twitched.
Just once.
I was a bit surprised, but I kept talking—since this was the only way I knew, especially when I really didn't know what else to do.
"You see, I'm a talker. Well, I usually talk to myself, since I'm used to being alone. Not in a physical sense—it's more like you being here but not actually seeing me. So I just talk, hoping maybe you'll see me. And talk to me too."
You don't have to answer me," I said. "I talk enough for two people anyway."
Then I smiled a little, though the room made it hard.
"I know a thing or two about getting tired. Not hallway tired. Not overtime tired. I mean the kind where your feelings start becoming another bill you can't afford."
The man's eyes moved.
Not to my face. To me. That was different.
So I kept talking, but slower now.
I stopped and looked at the man in the middle. He was now sitting with his head down. I sat beside him. Held his hand and told him
"There are days when you get so worn out that you stop asking for help because asking hurts too. So you tell yourself you're fine. You tell yourself you're calm. You tell yourself it doesn't matter." I looked down at my hands. "After a while, you get used to being the last person on your own list."
His breathing changed.
It was so faint I almost thought I imagined it, but no.
There it was.
A crack.
I looked at him and asked, "You called this peace, didn't you?"
For the first time since we entered the room, his face changed.
Barely. But enough.
His mouth moved, though no sound came out.
"That's not peace," I said gently. "That's what's left when a person has been hurting for so long that feeling anything starts to seem dangerous."
He shut his eyes.
And suddenly I knew.
Not his whole story. Not the details.
Just the shape of it.
This was not a man who had found peace.
This was a man who had gone numb and named it something kinder.
Because maybe the truth was too painful to say.
"You got tired," I said. "So tired that silence started feeling better than wanting. Better than hoping. Better than being disappointed again."
His shoulders trembled. Very slightly.
"I understand that," I said, and this time my voice came out rougher than I meant it to. "Sometimes not feeling looks safer. Sometimes it even feels cleaner. Like if you stop needing, then nothing can hurt you."
A sound escaped him then.
Small. Broken.
Like a door unlocking after years.
He sat with his head bowed, both hands hanging loose between his knees, like even holding himself together had become too much work.
The silence in the room changed.
It was still quiet, but not dead quiet anymore.
After a long while, he spoke.
His voice was low and scraped raw, as if it had not been used in years.
"It was quiet here."
That was all he said.
I nodded.
"Yeah. I know."
He swallowed hard.
"It didn't hurt here," he said.
I turned to look at him fully.
"Of course it didn't," I said softly. "Nothing reaches you here."
His face twisted. Not in anger. Not even in grief at first.
Just in recognition.
He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes like he could stop something from coming loose.
"I thought..." He stopped, breath shaking. "I thought if I stayed still enough... if I felt less... then maybe it would finally be quiet."
His voice broke on the last word.
"That's not peace," I said. "That's exhaustion."
He bent forward then, the sound coming out of him like he had been holding it in for too long. Not loud like the woman before. Not sharp. Just deep, torn, helpless.
The kind of crying that sounds like it started years ago and only just found a way out.
I held on.
He cried and cried, shoulders shaking, head lowered, and all I could think was how some people don't scream when they break.
"I was so tired," he whispered.
I felt my throat close.
"I know," I said.
"I didn't want to feel it anymore."
"I know."
"I thought if I stopped reaching... it would stop hurting."
There was nothing wise in me. Nothing polished. Nothing heavenly.
So I told him the only true thing I had.
"It makes sense," I said. "But you don't have to stay gone just because leaving hurts less."
He cried harder at that.
When his crying quieted, the room felt different.
As if the silence had finally exhaled.
He lifted his head slowly. His face looked wrecked. Eyes red. Mouth trembling. For the first time since I saw him, he looked alive enough to hurt.
Which, strangely, also made him look more peaceful than before.
He turned toward me fully.
There was no vacant stare now.
Just a tired man who had finally admitted that numbness was not the same thing as rest.
"Thank you," he said.
It came out so quietly I almost missed it.
I shook my head right away. "Don't thank me yet. The paperwork is still waiting."
That earned the smallest breath of a laugh.
From behind us, I heard Cael shift.
I looked at him.
He was already holding the file.
Of course he was.
He met my eyes for one brief second, and for once he didn't look irritated or bored.
Just watchful.
Then he did what he does.
"Deceased Case Number—" he began, then paused like he remembered I hated the recital part. His gaze moved to the man. "It is time to go."
The man stood. He didn't rush.
He just stood there for a moment, then he nodded.
This time when he spoke, his voice was still rough, but steady.
"Yes," he said. "I am ready."
A line appeared across the far wall.
Thin at first.
Then widening into that familiar crack just like in the last room.
He looked at it, then back at me.
He only gave me one small nod, then he walked forward and passed through.
And just like that, he was gone.
The room felt different now. Not silent anymore. Just... empty. Like a space that had been waiting and could finally rest.
Then Cael's voice echoed behind me.
"Case closed. Deceased collected."
I looked at him over my shoulder.
"That line really needs work," I said.
Cael almost smiled.
Almost.
Then he looked away first, which I personally considered a victory.
I got to my feet and wiped at my face.
Again.
Honestly, if this soul-collecting job kept requiring tears, I wanted to file a complaint.
As we turned toward the door, I looked back one last time at the empty room.
It didn't feel as heavy now.
And I thought, not for the first time, that maybe the saddest people are not always the loud ones.
Sometimes they are the quiet ones.
The ones who call it peace because they don't know what else to name the part of themselves that disappeared.