Genjitsu Gensō (現実幻想) - OBJKT: I Didn't Mean to Wake Them

Have you ever kept something inside for so long that, after a while, it stopped feeling like a secret and started feeling like something alive? They said confession was supposed to make us lighter. So at midnight, when the room became quiet and every voice lowered into prayer, I finally opened my mouth. I expected words. Instead, something moved. At first I thought it was only the feeling of everything I had swallowed over the years. The apologies I never meant. The anger I buried because it was easier to stay quiet. The fears I refused to name. The thoughts I prayed would disappear if I ignored them long enough. But forgotten things do not always die. Some learn how to survive in the dark. Some grow roots around the places we refuse to touch. And some wait patiently for the moment we finally give them a way out. One by one, they began climbing from somewhere beneath my voice. I tried to close my mouth. I couldn't. That was when I understood why the others in the room had stopped praying. They were listening. Not to me. To whatever had been listening from inside me all along. Maybe confession was never about removing the darkness. Maybe every secret spoken aloud is an invitation for something hidden to take form. And maybe that is why, at midnight, you should be careful what you ask to be forgiven for. Some prayers are heard by things we were never praying to.