Cycle I: Coming on Strong
The Hidden Voice
The Hidden Girl · 22 (v2.00)
THE HOUSE OF ZAN — Zan
Playlist Track: Wolf Alice — “Feeling Myself”
His last message asks if they can delete the private things they sent each other.
She answers yes, clears the private messages from their conversation, then opens Files.
The voice message where he first used the word she chose is saved there. So is the longer one she kept afterward.
She selects both.
Delete sends them to Recently Deleted instead of removing them. She opens the folder, finds the recordings again, and deletes them there too.
The phone asks whether she is sure.
This time, she does not press Cancel.
She thought she would want them back as soon as they were gone. She does not.
Then she opens Hidden.
It still holds the uncropped photograph of her shoulder, the old screenshots she once almost deleted, and other pieces of old conversations. Things sent freely that feel different now that the people inside them are gone.
Her own photograph stays.
So do the screenshots from the conversation that was not cruel all the way through.
She returns to the chat and writes, “can you delete mine too?”
She sends it.
His reply arrives.
“Already did.”
There is no way to check.
His answer has to be enough because it is all she can get.
The accidental-view conversation has another unread message. When she opens it, she finds a screenshot of the site recommending his nearly empty profile back to him.
“Finally found my perfect match,” he wrote.
She laughs and answers, “at least someone is interested.”
He replies before she closes the thread.
The conversation moves from the broken recommendation to terrible profiles, then to why either of them made an account at all.
She gives him the short answer first.
Curiosity.
The longer answer starts appearing without her deciding to give it.
She does not notice when she stops answering just to be polite.
When she switches back to Photos, Hidden is still open.
The saved recordings are gone.
Everything else is waiting.