Killer Professor

The Weight of Silence

Marco’s breathing slowed, but he didn’t calm down. Instead, he stiffened, as if something inside him had hardened. The message was still there, burned into his thoughts, but he chose to turn away. Again.

“No,” he whispered, almost convinced. “Not now.”

He grabbed his phone and deleted the message without thinking twice. No response, no confrontation. If he had read it once, that didn’t mean he had to let it change anything. Not yet.

He stood up and walked over to the table, where his journal was waiting for him, his pen resting on it like a silent weapon. He opened a new page, ignoring the harsh, truthful words that had already begun to undermine his fragile internal structure. He wrote decisively, almost angrily:

“It’s not my fault. Everything happened because it had to happen. I did what I could. Anyone in my place would have crumbled.”

The lies took shape again, like a blanket draped over a still-bleeding wound. Each word was a brick in the wall he was hastily rebuilding, with shaking but determined hands. He had to close that door, silence that voice that threatened to become too loud.

When he was done writing, he slammed the diary shut and pushed it away, as if he could take away the pain with a simple gesture. Then he turned on the television, the volume loud enough to drown out his thoughts, and sank onto the couch. The screen shone with empty lights and sounds, and he got lost in it like a castaway refusing to look at the horizon.

Every now and then, the message came back to visit him. In fragments, in echoes. But Marco had already convinced himself of one thing: if he ignored something long enough, maybe it would stop existing.