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No Longer Vacant

by Miles Rooker
Chapter 2
I shouldn’t have gone back.
That’s the part that keeps looping.
Everyone knows what you’re supposed to do.
Everyone except me, apparently.

Room 17 didn’t hum this time.
It waited.

The key fought me.
Just enough to feel intentional.
The door opened on weight.
Not silence.
Weight.

He was on the bed.
Or what used to be a bed.
Sheets folded around him like they’d been practicing.
No blood.
No mess.
No explanation willing to step forward.

His face was gone.
Not damaged.
Not hidden.
Gone like it had never been issued.
Skin smooth where a person should be,
as if someone erased the idea first
and let the rest follow.

I don’t remember backing out.
I don’t remember closing the door.
I remember my heart arguing with my ribs
and losing.

I ran.
Not heroic.
Not professional.
Straight down the breezeway
like the building had leaned
and pointed the way out.

The front desk office felt too small
once I locked myself inside.
The walls buzzed.
The phone stared at me.
The security monitor showed the hallway
empty and cooperative,
like it hadn’t just watched me leave something behind.

What do you do when you find a body.
That’s the question they never train you for.
Call the police.
Secure the scene.
Don’t touch anything.
Those are rules for a world
that agrees on what a body is.

I sat there instead.
Counting breaths.
Listening to the hum crawl through the vents.
Waiting for the door to knock back.

Room 17 stayed quiet.
Too quiet.
Like it had finished speaking
and was waiting to see
what I’d say next.

I haven’t written the report yet.
I don’t know what name to use.
I don’t know where to put the face
that wasn’t there.

All I know is the room is no longer vacant.
And neither am I.