The Journal of Empty Spaces
Lira Voss sat cross-legged on the concrete floor of her studio, a dead rat on the newspaper in front of her. The thing had been stiff for hours, eyes glazed, tail curled into a question mark. She'd found it behind the rusted sink that morning, belly-up in a puddle of greasy water.
She dipped her brush into the paint. Cheap acrylic, the kind she bought in bulk from the discount supply shop on Twelfth. Crimson. The color of warning. The color of stop.
She painted a line down the rat's spine.
The fur rippled. The rib cage expanded with a wet crack. The rat's legs jerked, scrabbling against the newspaper, and it flipped onto its belly with a squeal that sounded like tearing metal. Lira jerked back, brush clattering to the floor. The rat took three stumbling steps, its movements jerky and wrong, like a puppet with tangled strings. Then it collapsed. The flesh sloughed off the bones in gray ribbons. The bones themselves turned to dust, leaving a dark stain on the newsprint.
Lira stared at the stain. Her hands were shaking.
She touched her temple. Something was missing. A hollow space behind her eyes, like a tooth pulled clean from the gum. She reached for the memory—what had she been thinking about before the rat? The color red. The smell of turpentine. A birthday cake with candles shaped like numbers. Whose birthday? She couldn't remember. The cake was there, frosted in white, but the face above it was blank.
She grabbed her journal from the windowsill. The leather cover was cracked, pages dog-eared and smudged with paint. She flipped to the first entry, dated three days ago.
*Day 1. Painted the bridge. Forgot Mr. Alderman's face. He taught me watercolor in seventh grade. I remember his voice—gruff, always clearing his throat. But his face is gone. Just a blur where his nose and eyes should be.*
She'd written it in a panic, the ink smeared from wet fingers. Below it, a sketch of a man with no features.
She turned the page.
*Day 2. Painted the door. Forgot the song. It was something my mother hummed while she cooked. I can still feel the rhythm, but the melody is gone. I tried to whistle it. Nothing came out.*
Another sketch. A woman at a stove, her back to the viewer, her face a blank oval.
Lira wrote the new entry with a trembling hand.
*Day 3. Painted the rat. Forgot a birthday. Not sure whose. Maybe mine. Maybe someone else's. The cake had twelve candles. That means something. I don't know what.*
She closed the journal and pressed her palms against her eyes until she saw stars. The rain hammered the corrugated tin roof, a constant drumbeat that never stopped. Veridian City's sky wept green, and the acid seeped through every crack, staining the walls the color of old bruises.
Her studio was a single room in a condemned warehouse. The landlord didn't ask questions as long as she paid in ticks—three months of her lifespan every week, transferred through the rusted ticker bolted to her wrist. The device hummed constantly, a low vibration that she'd stopped noticing years ago. Everyone in the Dregs had one. Everyone was bleeding out slowly, second by second, into the Syndicate's reservoirs.
She looked at her hands. Paint caked under her nails, dried in the creases of her knuckles. She'd been an artist once. A real one. She'd had a scholarship to the Veridian Academy of Fine Arts, a dorm room with a window that faced the river, a future that didn't involve painting dead rats in a condemned warehouse.
That girl was gone now. Erased stroke by stroke.
The paint can on the floor caught her eye. Crimson. She'd used half of it on the rat. The rest sat there, viscous and patient, waiting for her to pick up the brush again. She felt the pull—the hunger in her chest, the itch in her fingers. The paint wanted to be used. It wanted to reshape the world.
She picked up the brush.
The door to her studio was steel, bolted with three deadbolts. She'd painted it herself two years ago—a mural of a woman reaching for the moon. The paint had peeled and faded, the woman's fingers now just gray smudges against a yellow sky.
Lira touched the brush to the deadbolt. She painted a keyhole where there was none.
The metal groaned. The lock clicked. The deadbolt slid back on its own.
She pushed the door open. The hallway beyond was dark, lit only by the green glow of the city through a broken window at the far end. She stepped through, heart pounding. The door swung shut behind her, and the deadbolt slid back into place.
She'd painted a lock into existence. She'd created something from nothing.
She touched her temple again. Another hollow space. This one larger than the last. She reached for the memory—something about a girl. A friend. They'd been laughing, sitting on a fire escape, sharing a cigarette. The girl's face was clear for a moment—sharp cheekbones, a gap between her front teeth—then it dissolved like smoke.
Lira stumbled back into the studio. She grabbed the journal, flipped to a fresh page, and wrote:
*Day 3, later. Painted a keyhole. Forgot a girl. She had a gap in her teeth. We shared a cigarette on a fire escape. I think her name started with M. Maybe. I don't know.*
She underlined the last sentence three times. Then she threw the journal across the room.
It hit the wall and fell open, pages fluttering. She saw the sketches she'd made over the past three days—the bridge, the door, the rat, the keyhole. Each one was a transaction. Each one cost her a piece of herself.
She was bleeding out faster than any ticker could measure.
The rain stopped. The sudden silence was worse than the noise. Lira sat on the floor, back against the wall, and stared at the crimson paint can. It glowed faintly in the dim light, pulsing with a rhythm that matched her heartbeat.
She thought about her mother. The one memory she'd held onto through everything—the eviction, the scholarship loss, the years of scraping by in the Dregs. Her mother's face. The curve of her jaw. The way she smiled with her whole mouth, crinkling the corners of her eyes. The sound of her laugh, low and warm, like honey poured over gravel.
If she used the paint again, that face would vanish. She knew it with the same certainty she knew the rain would return, that the ticker on her wrist would keep counting down, that the Syndicate would eventually find her.
She picked up the brush anyway.
The paint moved on its own. It flowed from the bristles like blood from a wound, tracing patterns on the concrete floor. A spiral. A circle. A door.
Lira painted a door that led nowhere. She painted it because she could. She painted it because the hunger was stronger than her fear.
The door opened.
On the other side was a room she didn't recognize. White walls. A single chair. A man sitting in it, his back to her. He wore a long coat, dark, with a collar turned up against a cold she couldn't feel.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
The man didn't turn. "Someone who's been waiting for you."
His voice was familiar. She'd heard it before—in a dream, maybe, or in a memory she'd already lost. The hollow space behind her eyes throbbed.
"I don't know you," she said.
"You will." He stood, still facing away. "Or you won't. Depends on how much you're willing to forget."
The door slammed shut. The paint on the floor was dry, cracked, useless. Lira stared at the spot where the door had been, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps.
She touched her temple.
Something was gone. Something big. She reached for it, clawed at the edges of the void, but it slipped through her fingers like water. She grabbed the journal, flipped to the last page, and wrote:
*Day 3, later still. Painted a door. Saw a man. Forgot something important. I don't know what. I don't know who. I don't know.*
She underlined the last three words until the pen tore through the paper.
The ticker on her wrist beeped. She looked down at the display: 12,847 days remaining. Thirty-five years, give or take. More than most people in the Dregs had. She'd been careful with her lifespan, trading only what she had to, hoarding the rest like a miser with gold.
But the paint didn't take ticks. It took memories. And memories were finite.
She closed the journal and pressed it to her chest. The cover was warm from her hands, the pages thick with her panic. She'd filled half the book in three days. At this rate, she'd be empty in a week.
The crimson paint can sat in the corner, patient and waiting.
Lira stood up. She walked to the can, picked it up, and carried it to the sink. She unscrewed the lid. The paint smelled like copper and rust, like blood left too long in the sun. She tilted the can, ready to pour it down the drain.
Her hand stopped.
The hunger was still there, coiled in her chest, waiting. If she poured the paint out, she'd never know what she could do. She'd never know why the bridge had healed, why the door had opened, why the man in the white room had known her name.
She put the lid back on.
The ticker beeped again. 12,846 days.
She set the can on the windowsill, next to the journal. The rain started again, a soft patter against the tin roof. The green glow of the city seeped through the cracks, casting her studio in the color of sickness.
Lira sat down on the floor, back against the wall, and watched the paint can pulse in the dark.
She didn't sleep. She didn't close her eyes. She just watched, and waited, and felt the hollow spaces grow.
She dipped her brush into the paint. Cheap acrylic, the kind she bought in bulk from the discount supply shop on Twelfth. Crimson. The color of warning. The color of stop.
She painted a line down the rat's spine.
The fur rippled. The rib cage expanded with a wet crack. The rat's legs jerked, scrabbling against the newspaper, and it flipped onto its belly with a squeal that sounded like tearing metal. Lira jerked back, brush clattering to the floor. The rat took three stumbling steps, its movements jerky and wrong, like a puppet with tangled strings. Then it collapsed. The flesh sloughed off the bones in gray ribbons. The bones themselves turned to dust, leaving a dark stain on the newsprint.
Lira stared at the stain. Her hands were shaking.
She touched her temple. Something was missing. A hollow space behind her eyes, like a tooth pulled clean from the gum. She reached for the memory—what had she been thinking about before the rat? The color red. The smell of turpentine. A birthday cake with candles shaped like numbers. Whose birthday? She couldn't remember. The cake was there, frosted in white, but the face above it was blank.
She grabbed her journal from the windowsill. The leather cover was cracked, pages dog-eared and smudged with paint. She flipped to the first entry, dated three days ago.
*Day 1. Painted the bridge. Forgot Mr. Alderman's face. He taught me watercolor in seventh grade. I remember his voice—gruff, always clearing his throat. But his face is gone. Just a blur where his nose and eyes should be.*
She'd written it in a panic, the ink smeared from wet fingers. Below it, a sketch of a man with no features.
She turned the page.
*Day 2. Painted the door. Forgot the song. It was something my mother hummed while she cooked. I can still feel the rhythm, but the melody is gone. I tried to whistle it. Nothing came out.*
Another sketch. A woman at a stove, her back to the viewer, her face a blank oval.
Lira wrote the new entry with a trembling hand.
*Day 3. Painted the rat. Forgot a birthday. Not sure whose. Maybe mine. Maybe someone else's. The cake had twelve candles. That means something. I don't know what.*
She closed the journal and pressed her palms against her eyes until she saw stars. The rain hammered the corrugated tin roof, a constant drumbeat that never stopped. Veridian City's sky wept green, and the acid seeped through every crack, staining the walls the color of old bruises.
Her studio was a single room in a condemned warehouse. The landlord didn't ask questions as long as she paid in ticks—three months of her lifespan every week, transferred through the rusted ticker bolted to her wrist. The device hummed constantly, a low vibration that she'd stopped noticing years ago. Everyone in the Dregs had one. Everyone was bleeding out slowly, second by second, into the Syndicate's reservoirs.
She looked at her hands. Paint caked under her nails, dried in the creases of her knuckles. She'd been an artist once. A real one. She'd had a scholarship to the Veridian Academy of Fine Arts, a dorm room with a window that faced the river, a future that didn't involve painting dead rats in a condemned warehouse.
That girl was gone now. Erased stroke by stroke.
The paint can on the floor caught her eye. Crimson. She'd used half of it on the rat. The rest sat there, viscous and patient, waiting for her to pick up the brush again. She felt the pull—the hunger in her chest, the itch in her fingers. The paint wanted to be used. It wanted to reshape the world.
She picked up the brush.
The door to her studio was steel, bolted with three deadbolts. She'd painted it herself two years ago—a mural of a woman reaching for the moon. The paint had peeled and faded, the woman's fingers now just gray smudges against a yellow sky.
Lira touched the brush to the deadbolt. She painted a keyhole where there was none.
The metal groaned. The lock clicked. The deadbolt slid back on its own.
She pushed the door open. The hallway beyond was dark, lit only by the green glow of the city through a broken window at the far end. She stepped through, heart pounding. The door swung shut behind her, and the deadbolt slid back into place.
She'd painted a lock into existence. She'd created something from nothing.
She touched her temple again. Another hollow space. This one larger than the last. She reached for the memory—something about a girl. A friend. They'd been laughing, sitting on a fire escape, sharing a cigarette. The girl's face was clear for a moment—sharp cheekbones, a gap between her front teeth—then it dissolved like smoke.
Lira stumbled back into the studio. She grabbed the journal, flipped to a fresh page, and wrote:
*Day 3, later. Painted a keyhole. Forgot a girl. She had a gap in her teeth. We shared a cigarette on a fire escape. I think her name started with M. Maybe. I don't know.*
She underlined the last sentence three times. Then she threw the journal across the room.
It hit the wall and fell open, pages fluttering. She saw the sketches she'd made over the past three days—the bridge, the door, the rat, the keyhole. Each one was a transaction. Each one cost her a piece of herself.
She was bleeding out faster than any ticker could measure.
The rain stopped. The sudden silence was worse than the noise. Lira sat on the floor, back against the wall, and stared at the crimson paint can. It glowed faintly in the dim light, pulsing with a rhythm that matched her heartbeat.
She thought about her mother. The one memory she'd held onto through everything—the eviction, the scholarship loss, the years of scraping by in the Dregs. Her mother's face. The curve of her jaw. The way she smiled with her whole mouth, crinkling the corners of her eyes. The sound of her laugh, low and warm, like honey poured over gravel.
If she used the paint again, that face would vanish. She knew it with the same certainty she knew the rain would return, that the ticker on her wrist would keep counting down, that the Syndicate would eventually find her.
She picked up the brush anyway.
The paint moved on its own. It flowed from the bristles like blood from a wound, tracing patterns on the concrete floor. A spiral. A circle. A door.
Lira painted a door that led nowhere. She painted it because she could. She painted it because the hunger was stronger than her fear.
The door opened.
On the other side was a room she didn't recognize. White walls. A single chair. A man sitting in it, his back to her. He wore a long coat, dark, with a collar turned up against a cold she couldn't feel.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
The man didn't turn. "Someone who's been waiting for you."
His voice was familiar. She'd heard it before—in a dream, maybe, or in a memory she'd already lost. The hollow space behind her eyes throbbed.
"I don't know you," she said.
"You will." He stood, still facing away. "Or you won't. Depends on how much you're willing to forget."
The door slammed shut. The paint on the floor was dry, cracked, useless. Lira stared at the spot where the door had been, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps.
She touched her temple.
Something was gone. Something big. She reached for it, clawed at the edges of the void, but it slipped through her fingers like water. She grabbed the journal, flipped to the last page, and wrote:
*Day 3, later still. Painted a door. Saw a man. Forgot something important. I don't know what. I don't know who. I don't know.*
She underlined the last three words until the pen tore through the paper.
The ticker on her wrist beeped. She looked down at the display: 12,847 days remaining. Thirty-five years, give or take. More than most people in the Dregs had. She'd been careful with her lifespan, trading only what she had to, hoarding the rest like a miser with gold.
But the paint didn't take ticks. It took memories. And memories were finite.
She closed the journal and pressed it to her chest. The cover was warm from her hands, the pages thick with her panic. She'd filled half the book in three days. At this rate, she'd be empty in a week.
The crimson paint can sat in the corner, patient and waiting.
Lira stood up. She walked to the can, picked it up, and carried it to the sink. She unscrewed the lid. The paint smelled like copper and rust, like blood left too long in the sun. She tilted the can, ready to pour it down the drain.
Her hand stopped.
The hunger was still there, coiled in her chest, waiting. If she poured the paint out, she'd never know what she could do. She'd never know why the bridge had healed, why the door had opened, why the man in the white room had known her name.
She put the lid back on.
The ticker beeped again. 12,846 days.
She set the can on the windowsill, next to the journal. The rain started again, a soft patter against the tin roof. The green glow of the city seeped through the cracks, casting her studio in the color of sickness.
Lira sat down on the floor, back against the wall, and watched the paint can pulse in the dark.
She didn't sleep. She didn't close her eyes. She just watched, and waited, and felt the hollow spaces grow.