Be Patient

The air in the basement was heavy with the stale, metallic scent of damp concrete. My breath hung in the space between my lips and the darkness, barely stirring, barely alive. I had once imagined that being forgotten would feel like vanishing into the ether, like a mist evaporating under the warmth of sunlight. I never imagined it would feel like this—trapped in a place that felt like it could swallow me whole and erase every trace of my existence.

The first thing they teach you in survival stories is to keep track of time. Mark the days. Remember who you are. But here, time was a slippery thing, a serpent coiled tight around my mind. There were no windows, no clocks, and the only rhythm was the one my body insisted on maintaining. Sleep. Wake. Wait. Repeat. I had scratched lines into the wall for what I thought were days, but the grooves blurred together in the faint light of a single hanging bulb. How long had it been? Months? Years? I didn’t know anymore.

I sat on the mattress they’d left me. It sagged in the middle, and the springs bit into my skin whenever I shifted. The room was bare except for the mattress, a metal bucket in the corner that served as a toilet, and a tray they slid under the door twice a day. At least, I thought it was twice. Maybe it was once. I’d stopped trusting my hunger to tell me the truth.

I’d tried screaming at first. My throat had burned from the effort, but all I’d earned was the sound of my own voice echoing back at me, hollow and pitiful. No one came. No one answered. So, I stopped.

The worst part was the silence. Not the absence of noise, but the oppressive weight of it. It pressed against my ears, my chest, my skull. In the beginning, I’d filled the void with my own voice, whispering stories to myself, recounting memories, reciting the lyrics of every song I could remember. But the longer I was here, the harder it became to recall the words. The edges of my memories began to blur, and I panicked, trying to hold onto them like sand slipping through my fingers.

I couldn’t forget. If I forgot, it would be as if I never existed.

I traced the lines of my name on the concrete floor with my fingertip. Elena. Over and over again. I mouthed the syllables, tasted them on my tongue, forced them into the still air. My name was all I had left.

“Elena,” I whispered to the dark. “Elena. Elena.”

But even that felt fragile, like it could break apart if I wasn’t careful.

The tray slid under the door with a screech that made me flinch. I scrambled over, ignoring the stiffness in my limbs, and grabbed it. A slice of bread, a small plastic cup of water, and an apple that was more bruise than fruit. I ate slowly, savoring every bite, forcing myself to chew even when I wanted to devour it all in an instant. The food was tasteless, but it was something to hold onto, something real.

I’d learned not to waste anything. The first time they’d brought me an apple, I’d thrown the core against the wall in frustration, letting it roll into a corner where it rotted and filled the room with its sickly-sweet stench. Now, I ate everything I could, even scraping the bread crumbs into my mouth with my fingers. I needed to stay alive. I needed someone to remember me.

The footsteps came at random intervals. Sometimes they stopped outside the door, and I held my breath, heart pounding, waiting for the lock to turn. But it never did. Other times, they passed by without hesitation, a ghostly presence that reminded me there was a world beyond these walls, even if I couldn’t reach it.

I’d tried to picture their faces, the people who had taken me. I couldn’t remember much about them—just fragments of a struggle, rough hands, a voice muttering something I couldn’t understand. The memory was like a broken mirror, shards reflecting bits and pieces but never the whole. I didn’t even know why I was here. Was it random? Did they want something from me? Or was I just… a mistake? An afterthought?

My chest tightened at the thought. What if no one was looking for me? What if they’d already given up? The idea was a splinter lodged in my mind, impossible to remove. I tried to push it away, but it always came back, gnawing at the edges of my sanity.

To keep myself from drowning in it, I created rituals. Every morning—or what I thought was morning—I stretched my legs and arms, counted my breaths, and walked the perimeter of the room. Twelve steps one way, twelve steps the other. I’d hum to myself, sometimes the same tune for hours, until the melody felt like a part of me. I’d talk to the walls, give them names, pretend they were listening.

“You don’t think they’ve forgotten me, do you?” I asked the wall one day, tracing a crack with my finger. “Someone out there has to remember me.”

The wall, of course, didn’t answer.

There were moments when I felt them slipping away—my parents, my friends, the people who made up the mosaic of my life. Their faces grew hazy in my mind, their voices faint echoes. I would try to summon them, to anchor them in my memory, but the harder I tried, the more they seemed to drift.

“Mom,” I whispered one night, lying on the mattress with tears streaking my cheeks. “Please don’t forget me.”

The bulb flickered, casting fleeting shadows on the walls. I stared at it, willing it to stay on, to not leave me in complete darkness. When it steadied, I let out a shaky breath. I didn’t know what I’d do if the light went out. The thought of being alone in the dark, with nothing but my thoughts and the oppressive silence, terrified me.

I’d started to wonder if I was losing my mind. Sometimes I thought I heard voices, faint and far away, like whispers carried on the wind. Other times, I’d see movement in the corners of my vision, only to find nothing there when I turned my head. My mind played tricks on me, creating phantoms to fill the void.

But the worst was when I started to forget myself. There were moments when I’d look at my reflection in the small puddle of water that formed near the bucket and not recognize the face staring back at me. My hair was greasy and matted, my skin pale and sallow, my eyes hollow. I’d touch my face, trying to remind myself that it was mine, that I was still Elena, still here.

One day, the footsteps stopped outside the door again. This time, the lock clicked, and the door creaked open. I squinted against the sudden brightness as a figure stepped inside. My heart raced, a mix of fear and hope clawing at my chest.

It was a man, his face obscured by a mask. He held a tray in one hand and set it down on the floor without a word. I tried to speak, to ask him why I was here, to beg him to let me go, but my voice cracked, and the words died in my throat. He glanced at me for a moment, his eyes unreadable, before turning and leaving. The door closed behind him with a finality that echoed in my bones.

I stared at the tray. It held the same meager meal as always, but there was something else this time. A piece of paper folded in half. My hands trembled as I picked it up and unfolded it.

The note was short, written in blocky, uneven letters: Be patient.

I read it over and over, trying to decipher its meaning. Was it a promise? A threat? I didn’t know. But it was something, a connection to the outside world, however small. I folded the note and tucked it into the waistband of my pants, keeping it close.

That night, as I lay on the mattress, I clung to the words like a lifeline. I didn’t know what they meant or who had written them, but they reminded me that I wasn’t completely forgotten. Someone knew I was here. Someone had reached out, however cryptically.

And for now, that was enough to keep me going.