The Reflection Room

No one really used Room 206 anymore. The windows were clouded, the lights flickered, and the desks were all mismatched like pieces from different puzzles. It had been a reading room once, then a study hall, then forgotten altogether. But for Theo, it became something else.

He found it by accident during lunch—looking for quiet, not meaning. But as he sat alone in that strange, echoing room, something shifted. The silence didn’t feel empty. It felt full. Not with noise, but with thought. With questions he hadn’t made time to ask.

At first, he brought homework. But soon, he brought only himself. No music, no phone. Just a notebook. He didn’t write assignments. He wrote what he was really thinking: *Why do I always pretend I know what I’m doing? What if I don’t need all the answers yet?*

Each day, the room greeted him the same—quiet, flickering, flawed. But in that imperfection, he felt freedom. There were no teachers watching, no peers expecting him to act like everything made sense. Just space to pause and wonder.

Over weeks, his notebook filled with unfinished thoughts, sketches, half-poems, and odd questions. *Why does silence feel loud sometimes?* *If people change, how do we know who we really are?* He didn’t share it with anyone. Not because it was secret—but because it was still becoming.

One day, he noticed someone had written on the chalkboard: *'The room isn’t magic. You are.'* No name, no explanation. But Theo smiled. Because deep down, he understood. The room hadn’t changed him. It had only made room for him to listen to what was already waiting inside.