I kept climbing. Again. Still. The body moved forward, obedient, mechanical. But something inside me stopped following. A deeper, more fragile part that no longer found reason, momentum, or breath to go on.
As if, from bearing too much, it had disconnected from the rest. It stayed behind. Or maybe it sank deeper into me. I no longer knew. I only felt that shift — discreet, but real. Like a loss that makes no sound, yet slowly eats everything away.
My feet struck the steps with a muffled violence, as if they wanted to break them, as if each step was a protest, an absurd attempt to shatter the cycle.
My breath tore through the air, ragged, rasping, useless — a breath that no longer nourished anything, that no longer carried, but sawed at my throat with every inhale. I was there, but not really. A machine of flesh and vertigo, continuing in spite of itself.
