Trigger Warning: This story depicts suicide and its aftermath. Please prioritize your well-being.
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You woke to the sound of rain against your window.
It was a familiar sound—the kind of sound that had been the backdrop of your life for as long as you could remember. Gotham rain was different from other rain. Heavier. More insistent. It didn't fall so much as it pressed, like the city itself was trying to wash something away.
You lay in bed for a long time, staring at the ceiling. There was a crack in the plaster, shaped vaguely like a bird in flight. You'd traced it a thousand times with your eyes, memorizing its contours, its branching paths. It was the most consistent thing in your room.
Your phone was silent on the nightstand.
You sat up slowly, feeling the familiar ache in your joints. You were (...). You shouldn't ache like this. But you'd been sleeping badly for months, years maybe, and the exhaustion had settled into your bones like a permanent tenant.
The mirror on your closet door showed you what you already knew: dark circles, pale skin, hair that hadn't seen a brush in days. You ran your fingers through it anyway, trying to tame the tangles. It didn't work. It never worked.
Downstairs, the manor was quiet.
That wasn't unusual. The manor was always quiet in the mornings—the kind of quiet that made you feel like you were the last person on earth. You walked through the halls, your footsteps muffled by the Persian runners, and you didn't pass a single person. Not Alfred. Not Bruce. Not any of the others.
The kitchen was empty, too.
You found a note on the counter, written in Alfred's precise hand: Gone to market. Breakfast in the oven. —A
You opened the oven. A plate of eggs and toast, still warm, covered with foil. You ate standing up, not tasting any of it. The food was fuel, nothing more. A necessary inconvenience.
You left the plate in the sink. You walked back through the halls, past the grandfather clock that hid the entrance to the cave, past the study where Bruce's desk was piled high with papers, past the living room where a fire had been lit but no one was sitting by it.
You stopped at the front door.
Your coat hung on the hook where it always hung. A worn thing, missing a button, the seams fraying at the cuffs. You put it on slowly, deliberately, like you were putting on armor.
Your hand rested on the brass handle. It was cold.
You opened the door. You stepped outside. You closed it behind you.
No one called out to ask where you were going.
No one appeared in the doorway to stop you.
You walked down the long driveway, past the iron gates, and turned left. The rain was light now, more mist than downpour, clinging to your hair and eyelashes. You didn't mind. The cold felt like something. The cold felt real.
The bridge was three miles away.
You'd never told anyone about the bridge.
It was your secret, your refuge, the place you went when the manor's walls started to close in. The wood was rotten in places, the railing rusted through, the whole structure groaning under its own weight. City inspectors had condemned it years ago. Vandalism crews had posted warnings and then given up when no one paid attention.
It was the most beautiful place you'd ever seen.
You climbed the fence with practiced ease. Your hands knew the grip of the chain-link, your feet knew the footholds. You'd been coming here for months, always alone, always in the quiet hours when no one would notice you were gone.
The planks groaned under your weight. You picked your way carefully to the middle, to the spot where the railing had rusted through completely. You sat down, legs dangling over the edge, and looked at the water.
The river was gray and sluggish. Oil slicks made rainbow patterns on its surface. Debris floated past—a broken branch, a plastic bottle, something white and shapeless that might have been a shoe. Fifty feet below, give or take. Far enough to break bones. Far enough to kill.
You pulled out your phone.
No messages. No missed calls. You'd been gone for an hour, and no one had noticed. You'd been gone for seventeen years, and no one had noticed.
Your thumb hovered over the camera app.
You'd started recording yourself a few months ago. Small videos, short messages, nothing important. You didn't know why you did it. Maybe because your therapist—the one Bruce had hired when you were fourteen, the one you'd seen exactly three times before he stopped making appointments—had said that keeping a diary could be helpful. Maybe because you wanted someone to remember you. Maybe because you wanted to remember yourself.
You opened the app. You pressed record.
"Hi," you said to the camera. "It's me. Again."
The screen showed your face—pale, tired, a smile that didn't quite reach your eyes. You watched yourself, detached, like you were watching a stranger.
"Today's the day, I think. I don't know. I've been thinking about it for a long time. Weeks. Months. I keep waiting for something to change, for someone to notice, for someone to see me. But no one does. No one ever does."
You paused. The wind whipped your hair across your face. You didn't push it away.
"I'm not angry. I used to be angry—so angry it felt like it would eat me alive. But I'm not angry anymore. I'm just tired. So tired. And I think... I think I'm ready to stop."
The camera wobbled in your hand. You adjusted your grip.
"I want to say something. To all of them. To Bruce, who brought me here and then forgot I existed. To Dick, who was always too busy to call. To Jason, who walked past me like I was furniture. To Tim, who only texts when he needs something. To Damian, who never learned how to see anyone but himself. To Alfred, who tries, who always tries, but who can't make up for the rest of them."
Your voice cracked. You swallowed hard.
"I wanted to matter. That's all. I wanted someone to look at me and see me. Really see me. Not the ghost in the corner, not the forgotten kid, not the obligation they inherited. Just... me."
You stopped. The rain was falling harder now, beading on the camera lens. You wiped it away with your sleeve.
"I used to believe that if I was good enough—if I tried hard enough, if I was quiet enough, if I didn't make trouble—they would notice me. They would love me. And then I grew up. And I realized that love isn't something you earn. It's something you're given. Or it's not."
The camera recorded your face, your eyes, the tears that were starting to fall.
"I don't blame them. I don't. They have so much to carry—so much weight, so many people counting on them. They're heroes. I'm just... I'm just the girl in the background. The one no one remembers to mention."
You laughed. It was an ugly sound.
"I don't know if anyone will ever see this. Probably not. But if you do—if anyone finds this, if anyone watches this—I want you to know that I tried. I tried so hard. And I wanted to stay. I really did."
"I love them. I love all of them. Even though they don't love me back. Even though I'm not sure they ever knew how to. I love them anyway. That's the stupid thing. That's the worst part."
The rain was heavy now. You could barely see the camera through the water on the lens. You didn't care.
"I'm going to stand up now. I'm going to climb over the railing. And I'm going to let go. And I want you to know—whoever you are, wherever you are—that this isn't their fault. It's not my fault, either. It's just... the way things turned out."
The bridge groaned beneath you. The water churned below. You looked at the sky, gray and endless, and you thought: This is the last thing I'll ever see.
You stepped over the railing. You balanced on the edge, toes pointing toward the river. The wind pulled at your coat, your hair, your skin. You let it.
You thought about all the things you'd never do. All the places you'd never go. All the people you'd never be. And then you thought about all the things you'd already done, already gone, already been—and none of it had been enough.
You opened your mouth. You wanted to say something. Something profound, something that would make this moment mean something.
So you just leaned forward.
That was the first thing you noticed. Not the impact—that was just a shattering, a breaking, a moment of pain so intense it didn't feel like pain at all. It was just... change. The transformation from air to water, from weightless to heavy, from alive to something else.
It was the cold that surprised you. You'd expected the cold, of course—it was winter, the river was freezing—but you hadn't expected it to feel like this. Like needles, like fire, like the water was trying to push you out, reject you, send you back where you came from.
You didn't fight. Your arms didn't flail. Your legs didn't kick. You just let the water take you, let it pull you down, let it fill your lungs and carry you wherever it wanted you to go.
You thought about the videos. The ones you'd made, the ones you'd never shown anyone. There were more than you'd admitted to—dozens of them, stacked in a folder on your phone, chronicling your slow unraveling. The first one had been happy. You'd been laughing, talking about your day, telling the camera about the stray cat you'd seen in the garden. The last one—the one you'd just recorded—had been something else entirely.
You hoped someone would find them.
You hoped someone would understand.
The water pressed against you, heavy and soft, like a blanket made of cold. You sank deeper. The light from above grew dimmer, then disappeared entirely. There was nothing now but darkness and cold and the sound of your own heart, slowing, slowing, slowing.
He had held your hand once, when you were small. Walked you to school. Read you bedtime stories. You'd thought he loved you. You'd thought he would always love you. And then Damian came, and you became a footnote in your own story.
He had taught you to do a cartwheel. He had thrown a frisbee with you on the back lawn, laughing, happy, present. And then he'd left. He'd gone to Blüdhaven and never really come back. He'd been busy. He was always busy.
He had read you The Hobbit. He'd done voices for all the characters, made you laugh, made you feel like you mattered. And then he'd died. And then he'd come back. And he'd walked past you in the hallways like you were a ghost he'd never bothered to haunt.
He had taught you chess. He'd let you win, always, and you'd never called him on it. And then the cases got more complicated, and the missions got more dangerous, and you became a logistics problem, a name in his contacts, someone to text when he needed a package picked up.
You thought about Damian.
He had never really seen you at all.
You thought about Alfred.
Alfred remembered. Alfred always remembered. He remembered your birthday, your favorite soup, the name of the stuffed animal you'd carried around when you were six. He remembered you. But Alfred couldn't make the others remember. He couldn't make them care.
You thought about yourself.
You thought about the girl you'd been, once. The cheerful child, the one who'd laughed and played and believed that things would get better. The one who'd stubbornly refused to give up hope, even when hope had become a stranger. The one who'd become pessimistic, cynical, hollowed out by years of being unseen.
You thought about her. And you thought: She deserved better.
The water pressed harder. Your lungs burned. Your vision was nothing but static, white noise, the shape of things that weren't there. You closed your eyes.
The manor was quiet that night.
Not the usual quiet—the kind that meant everyone was busy, distracted, lost in their own worlds. This was a different quiet. A waiting quiet. The kind that happened when something was wrong, but no one knew what.
He noticed most things first. It was his job, his calling, the role he'd carved out for himself in a house full of broken people. He noticed when the milk was running low, when the bills were due, when someone hadn't eaten in two days. He noticed when a plate went unwashed, when a light was left on, when a door was left unlocked.
He noticed when your bedroom door was open.
That was unusual. You always closed your door. You liked your privacy, he knew, and he respected that. But tonight, your door was open. Wide open. The kind of open that suggested you'd left in a hurry, or hadn't planned to come back at all.
He walked down the hall, his footsteps soft on the runner. He pushed the door open wider and looked inside.
Your room was neat. Too neat. Your bed was made—hospital corners, just like he'd taught you—and your desk was clear of clutter. Your bookshelf was organized, your clothes were hung, your shoes were lined up by the door.
It looked like a room that had been abandoned for years.
Alfred's heart, steady and strong after decades of service, began to beat faster.
He checked the bathroom. Empty. The closet. Empty. The window—the window was closed, locked, the way it always was.
He walked back to the hallway. He stood there for a long moment, trying to remember when he'd last seen you. This morning? Yes. He'd left you a note, eggs in the oven. You'd eaten—he'd seen the plate in the sink.
But you hadn't come to dinner. He'd noticed that, too. He'd assumed you were studying, or sleeping, or that you'd gone out with friends.
He was wrong. He could feel it in his bones.
He took out his phone. He called Bruce. He called Dick. He called Jason. He called Tim. He called Damian. He called everyone.
"Y/N is missing," he said. "She's been missing for hours."
Bruce saw it first. He was in the middle of a board meeting, his phone face-up on the table beside his notes. The notification flashed across the screen. He glanced at it, registered the name, and then looked back at the quarterly report he was reviewing.
She'll turn up, he thought. She always does.
Dick saw it next. He was in Blüdhaven, mid-patrol, perched on a rooftop with his eyes scanning the street below. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, read the message, and frowned.
Alfred's just being overprotective, he told himself. She's probably at a friend's house. She's fine.
He pocketed the phone and went back to watching the street
Jason saw it third. He was in Crime Alley, sitting in a diner that had seen better decades. The coffee was terrible, but the place was warm and dry and no one bothered him. His phone buzzed. He read the message. He stared at it for a long moment.
Not my problem, he thought. She's not my responsibility.
He put the phone face-down on the table and went back to his coffee.
Tim saw it fourth. He was in the cave, hunched over the Batcomputer, running analysis on a new drug ring that had popped up in the Bowery. The message popped up in the corner of his screen. He read it, frowned, and dismissed it.
Alfred worries too much, he thought. She's just out late. She'll come back.
He went back to his analysis
Damian saw it fifth. He was in the training room, working through a series of katas with Dick's old escrima sticks. His phone was on the bench, and he saw the message when he stopped for water. He read it. He scrolled past it.
The girl is a distraction, he thought. She's not important.
He went back to his training
No one responded to Alfred.
No one went looking for you.
And in the quiet of the manor, Alfred Pennyworth stood alone in the kitchen, staring at his phone, waiting for a reply that would never come
The first week, Alfred continued to wait.
He checked the front door every hour. He called your phone—straight to voicemail, every time. He walked the grounds, looking for any sign of you, and found nothing.
He called the police. They took a report. They said they'd look into it.
He called the hospital. They had no record of you.
He called your school. They said you hadn't been in class.
And still, the family did nothing.
Bruce was in the cave, working on a case. Dick was in Blüdhaven, patrolling. Jason was in Crime Alley, doing whatever Jason did. Tim was in the cave, running analysis. Damian was in the training room, training.
They'd read Alfred's message. They'd registered it. And then they'd put it out of their minds.
She'll come back, they all thought. She always comes back
Alfred stopped calling the police. They'd found nothing. No leads, no sightings, nothing.
He stopped calling your phone. It was dead. It had been dead for days.
He stopped walking the grounds. There was no point. You weren't there.
He started cleaning your room.
It was a habit, a comfort, a way to feel close to you when you weren't there. He dusted your bookshelf. He straightened your desk. He made your bed with hospital corners, just like he'd taught you.
And in the back of your closet, hidden behind a stack of old shoeboxes, he found the camera.
It was a small thing—an old digital camera, the kind that had been popular a decade ago. It was well-used, the buttons worn smooth, the lens scratched. He picked it up, turned it over in his hands.
He didn't open it. That wasn't his place.
He put it on your desk, where you'd left it. And he went back to cleaning
Three months of Alfred waiting, hoping, praying. Three months of the family going about their lives like nothing had changed. Three months of silence from the police, from the hospitals, from everyone.
And then, on a rainy Tuesday in July, the police found your body.
It was an accident, really—a fisherman who'd gone out too early, who'd seen something caught on a sandbar near the harbor. He'd thought it was driftwood. He'd been wrong.
They identified you by the ring on your finger. The simple silver band you'd found at a thrift store. The only piece of jewelry you owned.
Alfred got the call at 6:17 AM.
He stood in the kitchen, the phone pressed to his ear, and listened to the officer's voice. He didn't cry. He didn't break. He just stood there, silent, until the officer was done.
"I understand," he said. "Thank you for letting me know."
He hung up. He put the phone down. And then he walked to the cave
The cave was empty when he arrived. The Batcomputer hummed quietly, screens displaying data no one was looking at. Alfred walked to the center of the room and stood there, waiting.
He didn't have to wait long.
Bruce came first, descending from the manor. Then Dick, who'd been visiting for the weekend. Then Jason, who'd somehow heard. Then Tim, who'd been in the cave all along. Then Damian, who'd come because everyone else had.
They stood in a loose circle, looking at Alfred. His face was pale, his eyes red-rimmed. He looked older than any of them had ever seen him.
"She's dead," he said. "They found her body this morning. In the harbor."
The words hung in the air, heavy and impossible.
"What?" Dick's voice was barely a whisper. "What do you mean, dead?"
"I mean she's dead." Alfred's voice was flat. "She's been dead for three months. She jumped off the old bridge. The one on the south side of the city. She left her phone there. The police found it."
Bruce's face went white. "Three months?"
"Three months," Alfred repeated. "I sent you a message. The night she disappeared. I asked you to help me find her. No one responded."
He looked at each of them, one by one.
"Three months," he said again. "She's been gone for three months, and none of you noticed. None of you cared."
"That's not true—" Tim started.
"Isn't it?" Alfred's voice was sharp for the first time. "When was the last time any of you spoke to her? When was the last time you looked at her? Really looked at her?"
Alfred found the camera again that night.
He was in your room, sitting on your bed, your empty room around him. He'd been sitting there for hours, trying to process what had happened. Trying to understand how he'd failed you.
He saw the camera on your desk. He picked it up. He turned it on.
There were hundreds of videos on it.
He scrolled through the thumbnails. You, at different ages. Six years old, grinning at the camera. Eight years old, doing a cartwheel. Ten years old, crying about something he couldn't remember. Twelve years old, laughing with a friend. Fourteen years old, looking tired. Fifteen years old, looking sad. Sixteen years old, looking empty.
Seventeen years old, looking like you'd given up.
He pressed play on the first one
You were six years old. Your face was round, your hair in pigtails, a gap in your front teeth that you'd lost a few weeks ago. You were sitting in your room, holding the camera at arm's length.
"Hi!" you said, waving. "I'm Y/N! And this is my camera! It's a present from my friend Sarah. She said I should film myself so I can remember stuff. Like a diary, but with pictures!"
You giggled. "I don't know what to say. Um. I like pancakes. And I like my cat. And I like my room."
You turned the camera to show your room—the same room you'd die in, eleven years later. "This is my bed. And my books. And my stuffed animals. See?"
The camera showed a row of stuffed animals, each one carefully arranged.
"This is Mr. Whiskers," you said, picking up a worn rabbit. "He's my favorite. He's been with me since I was a baby. I'm going to keep him forever."
You hugged the rabbit. "Okay. That's all for now. Bye!"
Video 12: August 14, 2016
You were seven. Your hair was cropped short and uneven, like someone had cut it in a hurry. Your face was too small, too pale, all sharp cheekbones and hollow eyes that already knew how to hide.
You sat cross-legged on the cold floor of your room, the camera balanced precariously on a stack of books. The light was dim, the kind that made everything feel smaller.
"I'm sad today," you whispered, voice barely louder than the hum of the city outside. Your fingers picked at a loose thread on your sleeve. "Bruce forgot my birthday. He said he’d remember this time… but he had a meeting."
"It’s okay. Alfred remembered. He always does. He made me a chocolate cake. My favorite."
You tried to smile. It cracked halfway, trembling at the corners before it died. Your eyes stayed wet and distant, fixed on some point just past the lens, like you were already apologizing for wanting more.
"I wish Bruce remembered, though." Your voice cracked on his name. "I wish… I wish he cared even a little. Maybe next year."
You looked down at your hands, small and empty in your lap. The silence that followed felt heavier than any words.
Video 23: January 3, 2018
You were nine. You were crying, your face red, your eyes swollen.
"Damian said I don't belong here," you said. "He said I'm not really part of the family. That I'm just a stray Bruce picked up."
You wiped your nose with your sleeve. "I don't think he's right. I think I do belong here. I think I'm part of this family. But sometimes I wonder."
You looked at the camera. "What if I don't belong? What if they all secretly wish I'd never come here?"
The camera shakes slightly under the harsh glare of the sun. Behind you, the overgrown ivy of the garden spills over the frame, but you are the only focus, wearing that sundress you love, your hair struggling to stay in a messy bun. There is a light in your eyes—a kind of raw, fragile hope we haven’t seen before.
Your smile is wide, almost painful in its intensity.
"You won't believe it," you say, your voice trembling with a pitch so high it’s almost a sob of joy. "I made a friend today. A real one. Like in the movies—the kind where, when they sit next to you, the whole world just... stops being scary."
You pause to giggle, then cover your face with your hands, peeking through your fingers. "Her name is Luna. From science class. During lunch... she just sat down. When I was by myself, when I was completely invisible, she came and sat right next to me."
Your grin widens until your cheeks look like they might ache.
"She didn't even ask why I was alone. She didn't look at me like I was a broken thing. She just... existed there, beside me. She talked to me like I’d always been there."
Suddenly, you go quiet, pressing your hands against your chest. The excitement in your voice shifts into something far more vulnerable, a jagged, aching kind of hope.
"Maybe this is it, right? Maybe I finally did it. Maybe this time... there’s someone who finally *sees* me."
You lean in closer to the lens, blurring for a second. "Luna said she’s going to sit with me again tomorrow. Tomorrow... we’re going to be together in the garden again. Is that too much? It feels like too much for me..."
Your eyes well up, but that fragile, brilliant smile stays glued to your face. "I’m not alone anymore. I think... I think I’m not invisible anymore."
The camera wobbles, as if your own hands are shaking too hard to hold it steady. Just before the video cuts, we hear you whisper to yourself, breathless and soft:
The video cuts to black while you are still beaming at the lens, bathed in that golden, unforgiving sunlight.
The camera is angled low, tilted toward the floor, capturing only your legs pulled tightly against your stomach. The room is dim, the only light coming from a single, flickering desk lamp that casts long, jagged shadows against the wall. You are clutching a pillow to your chest—the same one you always hold—and your knuckles are white, straining against the fabric.
Your voice is barely a whisper, hollow and drained of all the light that was there before.
"She’s gone," you say, the words landing like heavy stones. "Luna left this morning. The house was empty before I even got to the gate."
You press your forehead against the pillow, your voice muffled by the cushion. "She promised, you know. She said we’d write. She said we’d be friends, no matter how many miles were between us. But I saw the way she looked at the taxi, at the road ahead... she didn't look back at the window. Not even once."
A shuddering breath escapes you.
"I shouldn't have hoped. I knew better." You laugh, but it’s a dry, brittle sound—more like glass breaking than a laugh. "I just... I let myself believe for one second that I was worth staying for. That I was someone people wanted to keep around."
You bury your face deeper into the pillow, your shoulders beginning to shake with the weight of it.
"I’m back to being the girl in the background, aren't I? The one who gets forgotten the moment the door closes. It’s like I’m made of smoke—people hold onto me for a while, but then I just... I drift away. I fade until there’s nothing left to see."
You go quiet, the silence of the room swallowing you whole. The only sound is the ragged, uneven rhythm of your breathing, a small, lonely sound in the dark.
"No one stays," you whisper, the finality of it sharp enough to cut. "I think I’m just... meant to be left behind."
The red light on the camera blinks steadily, capturing the dark, empty space beside you where someone should have been, before the video cuts to black.
Video 53: September 28, 2022
The camera is propped up against a sugar canister, capturing a wide, unflattering view of the kitchen—a space that feels far too vast for just one person. You are standing at the counter, your hands submerged in a mound of flour that dusts your wrists like pale, chalky sleeves.
You aren’t looking at the lens. You are pressing a cookie cutter into the dough with a clinical, repetitive force, as if you’re trying to flatten something much deeper than just sugar and butter.
"I’m making these for them," you murmur, your voice devoid of the brightness you used to have. You wipe your forehead with the back of your hand, leaving a smear of white across your temple. "Alfred’s recipe. He said if I followed it perfectly, they’d taste like home."
You pause, staring at the tray of raw, misshapen shapes. You let out a short, hollow sound—a laugh that stops before it can become anything real.
"I’m going to leave them in the common area. Just... sitting there. Maybe they’ll notice. Maybe someone will walk by, take one, and actually wonder who went to the trouble of making them." You shrug, and the flour puffs into the air around you, settling like dust on old furniture. "Maybe they’ll even say thank you."
You turn your head toward the camera then, and your eyes look tired—older than thirteen, older than they have any right to be.
"Who am I kidding?" you whisper, the honesty of it carving a hollow space in the air. "They won't notice. They never do. I’m just... part of the scenery. Like the wallpaper or the light switches. You only notice when the light goes out, but you never think to thank the switch for being there."
You return your attention to the tray, your movements becoming slower, more deliberate.
"It’s fine, though. I’m used to it. It’s just flour and sugar, anyway. It’s not like anyone was waiting for them."
You pick up a handful of dough, turning it over in your palms. The camera catches the way your fingers tremble, just slightly, before you press the dough down again.
The video cuts to black while you are still standing there in the silence, surrounded by the smell of vanilla and the crushing weight of being ignored in your own home.
Video 62: February 14, 2023
You were fourteen. You were in your room, a heart-shaped box of chocolates on your desk.
"I bought myself chocolates," you said. "Because no one else was going to."
You laughed, but it was hollow. "Happy Valentine's Day to me. Maybe next year, someone will remember."
You were fifteen. You were on the bridge—your bridge, the abandoned one. The camera was shaky, the wind loud in the background.
"I found this place today," you said. "It's abandoned. No one comes here. It's just... mine."
You turned the camera to show the river, the city lights, the sky.
"It's beautiful," you said. "In a broken kind of way. I think I'm going to come here a lot. It's the only place where no one can ignore me."
Video 88: September 3, 2025
The camera is set on a stack of books, recording from an awkward, low angle that makes the room look cavernous and cold. You are sitting on the floor, your back pressed against the cold wall, your limbs arranged with a listless, heavy sort of exhaustion. Your face is drained of color, and the eyes that stare into the lens aren't looking at the camera—they’re looking through it, into a void where you clearly expect to find nothing.
"I don't know why I keep doing this," you say, your voice cracking. It’s thin, brittle, and sounds like it hasn't been used in days. "I’m just talking to a blinking light. No one is on the other side. No one is ever going to be."
You pull your sleeves over your hands, rubbing them together as if trying to find a warmth that isn't there.
"I keep waiting for someone to find these. To look at them and realize... oh. She was there. She was hurting. She was lonely." You let out a jagged breath. "But no one cares. I’m just a ghost haunting my own life."
You lift your head, and for a split second, there is a flash of raw, desperate intensity in your eyes—a plea for connection that is almost impossible to watch.
"But I can't stop. I literally can't," you whisper. "It’s the only way I know how to prove I’m still here. If I don't record this, if I don't leave some trace of myself behind... it’s like I never happened at all. It’s the only way I know how to talk to someone—even if that someone is just a memory of who I was supposed to be."
You pause, your chin dropping to your chest. The silence of the room is suffocating; it’s the heavy, pressing silence of someone who has screamed and realized that the walls are too thick to let the sound out.
"I’m just so tired," you say, and the word 'tired' carries the weight of years. "I’m tired of trying to be seen. I’m tired of standing in rooms full of people and feeling like I’m made of glass. I’m so, so tired of being invisible."
You don't move to turn the camera off. You just sit there, a small, fragile figure huddled in the shadows, your breathing shallow and slow.
The camera continues to run, capturing the steady, rhythmic blinking of the recording light—a tiny, mechanical heart beating in the dark, the only thing in the room that seems to acknowledge you exist at all.
