Call Me Aiden

The boy in Room 306 looked terrified of everything.Footsteps outside the door.The dark.Sleep.Sometimes, Nora would catch him staring at nothing with panic in his eyes like he was seeing something nobody else could.Then she heard about the accident.A rain-soaked highway.A truck driver smiling before impact.And a boy who survived when he probably should not have.After that night, Aiden begins slipping quietly out of reality.Hallucinations blur into memories. Nights become unbearable. And the more Nora gets close to him, the more she realizes there is something deeply unsettling about the way he exists, like he is hiding pieces of himself even when he says nothing at all.Because whenever she asks him who he really is, he never answers.He only says, "Call me Aiden."