You.

You haven't spoken since I arrived.

You keep to yourself, staring forward, refusing to speak. Your mouth closed tightly, sealed like an envelope. You only looked at me once, unsure of what to say or do. You watched me sit, relaxing next to you. You seemed to recoil a bit, you didn't think anyone would come here. Not even me. Least of all me. You had the eyes of an owl, peering at me with shards of glass. Shining and dark as you glared at me. Waiting for me to make a move.

But I was still.

Were you even looking at me?

Or were you looking past me, towards the endless expanse of nothing between us, around us, filling the spaces that we don't occupy. What do you think of when you look out there into the void?

You are not plagued with the thoughts of the past, I know this. You are steadfast in your thinking (as always), you think only of the present (never pondering on what can't be changed), you don't turn your head to look back (you never had any regrets). You think of things to say, but you don't say them.

Your voice would betray you if you'd try. I respect your silence. (I always did.)

You don't know one thing though, you don't know what to do next. You are comfortable in this silence, but you are not deluded enough to think that this can go on forever. You know that one of us must break the tension, but you won't pull the trigger.

The darkness oozes into your palms, you give no protest. Had this happened before?

Roots from the darkness embedded themselves around us, this place held no logic and so darkness grew like trees. Darkness as a forest shrouding us from the outside and covering the sky with it's thick branches. Shading us in silence and tension. In this place I have seen water float among me, lifting into the air next to me and surrounding me. I have seen monsters walk on stilts, towering over me into the sky and peering down at me as if I were an ant.

You have seen far worse and far better. You have been here much longer than I have. (And who's fault is that?)

When faced with permanent darkness, you do not yearn for light. (You never did, did you?)

If you were to speak what would you want to say? You would chastise me, for sure. Regurgitate my sins and display them to me in plain fashion. Piled neatly in front of us you would point them out one by one and speak about them as if you were writing an essay.

You would want to scream, but you could never scream. Your vocal cords are glass and screams were always too high a frequency for your voice to bear. You would not give in to such desires, those are below you. And so you would sit, you would speak with a gentle tone, full of barely concealed anger and a whisper of sadness. You would ramble without the right words to fill your mouth. Nothing you would say would hold any substance, a vomit of filler to keep from returning back to the silence.

You let the silence continue knowing that I will not speak. What do I have to say to you? Nothing honestly, my words would fall on deaf ears anyways.

Your eyes are dim, with no artificial light to fill them they are hollow, the lack the depth they usually carried. You seem flatter than before, timid and small with no words to carry your ego. I feel nothing over this revelation, but the taste in my mouth is that of copper and coffee beans, so maybe I do feel a sense of nostalgia after all.

You feel this too, you taste something, something bitter as it seems. The corners of your mouth dip down, the dimples on your cheeks evident from this angle. You look upset but I know you are content.

Do you miss this?

This comfortable silence that went away for so long. You probably don't, why would you? You seemed just fine before I came. You don't miss this, I realize, because with the silence comes a tension that sits on your shoulders and watches our every move. You wish that the silence and the tension would melt away. You wish I would melt away.

I am not here because I want to be. We are two birds on a wire and we have shared the same fate, just as you had said we would.

"You are not real." You proclaim, soft and bitter. Monotone and careless, like you always spoke. "This is not the first time you have returned and it will not be the last."

I scoff and turn to look at you fully, you are tired and weak. A skeleton with bones made of pearls, translucent skin made of paper.

"Should I pinch you?" You do not react to that, you continue to frown. You do not look my way. I try again, against my better judgement. "We could pinch each other, to see if we're dreaming?" You still look forward.

The silence continues for some time until your chest heaves and you give in. You look to me, your face that of someone who has not slept in a long time, someone who is running on too much espresso. I miss your stare.

You move your skeletal fingers to my wrist, letting your hand fall against it. I do the same, feeling the ice that has covered your skin and taking the flesh between my index finger and thumb. You do not change your expression, but you do blink and look down. Nothing changes for you and you start to feel helpless.

It's your turn to mimic me and when you do my vision swims and I am blinded by an orchestra of light. You disappear and I am awake again. I am lying in my bed with my legs tangled in the sheets and the blinds open. It hurts to keep them open for too long and as I roll over I realise you were right.

I'm not real.

I start to see you a lot after that. Peering in from the kitchen door, holding a tea cup precariously and frowning. Sitting on my bed and reading over something on my phone, pawing your fingers against the screen as your face is lit against it. On the balcony as the rain drizzles against your skin.

You aren't real either.

I can't focus anymore because I know I've gone crazy. I hear your voice at night on the brink of sleep. The soothing tones telling me to end everything, to throw away the key and start over. To throw either myself or the pages into the ocean and stop the madness that seems to have taken over every facet of my being.

But I can't and if you were really here you would know that.

But you're not real and neither am I.