The room was small. No stage, no lights. Just a couch with torn cushions, a flickering bulb overhead, and a warped mirror pinned to the wall. The kind of place performers waited in before their turn. Before the nerves kicked in. Before the laugh or the silence.
Eden sat alone.
She didn't look spectral anymore.
She didn't look dead, either.
She just looked… real.
No makeup. No show clothes. Just a hoodie and jeans. Her hair tied back in the way she used to when she was too tired to impress anyone.
She sat cross-legged on the couch, notebook in hand, pen hovering over the page.
Across from her was a wall of Polaroids.
Each photo showed a different face.
Vivian, head tilted in defiance. Darren, eyes soft with apology. Marc, mid-laugh—unaware it might be his last. Theo, mouth open mid-argument. Lena, just before the door.
The last photo was Eden herself.
Younger. Nervous. But smiling.
She looked at that final picture now. Smiled back.
Then, finally, she wrote:
"I used to think my story ended with silence.
But maybe silence was just the inhale.
And everything that came after—
The stories, the pain, the punchlines—
Was the exhale."
She closed the notebook.
Set it on the table.
Somewhere outside the room, a laugh broke through.
Not cruel.
Not forced.
Just one, genuine laugh. Small. Honest.
Eden leaned back on the couch and let it wash over her like rain after a drought.
This room wasn't the end.
It wasn't the beginning, either.
It was between.
The green room.
The pause before the next set.
And for the first time in what felt like forever, she didn't dread what came next.
She welcomed it.
A knock echoed on the door.
"Eden?" a voice called. "You're on in five."
She stood, stretched, rolled her neck.
"Coming," she said.
And as she opened the door, light spilled into the room—not stage light.
Just morning.
Warm.
Real.
She stepped into it.
Not to haunt.
Not to be remembered.
But to live.
Even if it was just in the echo of the laugh.