The silence after the last key turns

I was cleaning out the old lockbox today—rusted, full of keys that don’t open anything anymore. One of them had a name carved on the back: ‘M. Reyes.’ I never knew who he was. But when I held it, I swear I heard the echo of a door closing in a corridor that’s been empty for ten years. Not a memory. A sound. Like the building itself exhaled. I left the key on the windowsill. Let it rust. Let it stay.