The Room of Echoes

A short story –

The room was quiet, except for the low hum of the ceiling light—an endless buzz that felt like it was stitched into the silence.

The man sat alone, elbows resting on the edge of a steel table, his fingers interlocked, not out of prayer, but out of habit.

His name was Marcus, but that felt like someone else’s name now. He hadn’t heard it said with love in years.

He closed his eyes.

And let the ghosts come.

He saw it.

That boy. The one with the crooked teeth and hand-me-down shoes.

What was his name? Jason? No…

Jordan.

Jordan had brought his science project to school—so proud, so fragile.

Marcus remembered laughing. Loud, cruel, a bark of sound that drew others in. They surrounded Jordan like flies, and Marcus—young, sharp-eyed, cruel Marcus—smashed the project to the floor with a grin.

It cracked open like an egg. So did Jordan.

He remembered the boy’s face. Red, stunned. A quiet collapse.

And the cheers behind him? They made him feel like a king.

Now? They made his stomach twist.

“You thought it was power. It was just noise,” he whispered to the empty room.

…

School was a blur of chairs and chalk. He never cared.

While the others crammed words into their minds like lifeboats, he floated. Laughed. Cut class. Ripped up textbooks. Mocked teachers like it was a sport.

He remembered the math teacher with the limp—Mr. Reynolds. How he’d once said:

“Marcus, the world doesn’t hand mercy to those who don’t build their own future.”

Marcus replied, “Then I’ll take mine, old man.”

He remembered how proud he felt saying it.

He also remembered the night he couldn’t read the rental agreement in his first apartment. He’d stared at the page for fifteen minutes before signing anyway.

He’d signed everything since. Contracts. Court orders. Plea deals.

Not knowing what he was giving away.

…

The parties bled together in neon and blackouts. He remembered the sting of cheap vodka, the cold tile of unfamiliar bathrooms, the sweaty bodies that never said goodbye.

Smoke curled through his lungs. Music thumped in his chest. He danced with devils and laughed as they clinked pills into his palm like communion wafers.

Sometimes, he woke up not knowing who he’d kissed. Or what he’d done. Or what part of him had disappeared in the night?

One morning, he’d woken up beside a girl he couldn’t name, in a car he didn’t own, parked in a place he didn’t recognize.

And he felt nothing.

Not even shame.

Until now.

…

His parents.

God.

His mother had cried through the kitchen door, pleading in that paper-thin voice of hers. His father had once stood silently beside her, hands clenched so tight his knuckles looked like bone.

Marcus had screamed at them. Called them names. Said they were nothing.

He remembered shoving his mother when she tried to hide his stash. He remembered the sound she made—more shock than pain.

He didn’t turn back. Not once.

Until the funeral.

And by then, it was too late to say sorry.

…

He opened his eyes.

The humming light above him flickered again.

He ran a hand through his thinning hair and stared at the deep scar along his wrist—a reminder of a night where even his own skin tried to escape him.

His reflection in the metal table looked unfamiliar, like the ghost of someone who used to be loud, reckless, and untouchable.

“You were never untouchable,” he said aloud. “You just didn’t care who you hurt.”

He took a deep breath.

And finally looked around.

The room was small. Windowless. Concrete walls. A camera in the corner. A single door with no handle on his side.

His eyes moved to the steel bars across the far wall.

Outside them, another man passed by in uniform. Glanced in. Didn’t speak.

Didn’t need to.

He whispered, almost too quietly for even the room to hear:

“I remember the night. The cold. The silence. The sound of the safe unlocking. The scream. The mistake.”

A robbery.

It was supposed to be simple. A score to fix everything.