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The room was still empty.

Not entirely empty, technically. Mimsy was in it, of course, as was her bed, her research, her clothing, her statue. Just her and her possessions.

That was the problem. There was significance in what was missing from the room, and the lack of presence consumed everything that remained in it. There was no significance in what was there, despite the importance it might have had elsewhere. That was how it felt, at least.

Room 144 had developed incredible properties. Within its walls, nothing mattered, nor seemed like it mattered, nor appeared as if it would ever matter again. This included its current occupant, who grew more certain about her theory regarding its influence as her prolonged exposure to its properties made her care less and less about certainty.

It was not difficult to determine the catalyst for this property shift.

Extensive properties always changed when the amount of matter did.

The amount of matter had been halved with a reaction.

It would never be the same. 'It', in this context, meant 'everything'.

She should have registered its existence as metastable from the beginning. It was impossible to predict, stable only by technicalities, and its finite lifespan had now come to an end, leaving them to a more natural state of stability.

Mimsy was ashamed that her natural state of stability was instability.

Especially when Kostya seemed to be doing so well. She would have found it difficult to prevent herself from despising him for it, if she could have managed to feel like it was important for her to sustain that feeling. She didn't.

The properties of the room were not helping, she decided, blank stare directed towards the vacant side of the room. It could not be repaired, and its drain on her was driving her further into an inability to recognize herself.

The pillowcase, though damp with tears, pulled free from her pillow without much resistance. She absently rubbed the fabric between her fingers, eyes slowly trailing from object to object in the room, calculating, deconstructing its composition until the feeling that they didn't belong there was too overbearing to ignore. Was this how he'd felt? Had he thought about it all until he couldn't stand it anymore?

If that were the case, there was an unseen catalyst that she didn't comprehend. Couldn't, perhaps.

With a deep exhale, she began collecting the items that were necessities in the outside world: notebooks filled research, books, clothing, a handful of pens were all placed inside the pillowcase, which she tied with a sloppy knot. It fit too easily. She had accomplished so little, especially in this room, and the thought weighed heavily on her as she clutched the piece of bed linen. Nauseous again, she picked at the stitching at the edges as she surveyed what remained: sparse decor, non-perishable food and supplies, a statue made in her image.

They were the only things left with a memory of him. It was like a thin film over them at best, not him ingrained into them, but they were all that the room had left to offer. She humored a juvenile idea that the memory might spread like spores, might somehow connect the severed pieces again, restore balance to the missing matter to repair its broken properties.

She chose to ignore the fact that she continued to half it instead, each time she'd removed a portion of her belongings. Now she was doing it again. And this time, as the objects began to dwindle, she'd remove its last inhabitant too. Maybe not officially yet, but knowing that she wouldn't stay here was enough for now.

The pillowcase in her arms was lighter than she wanted to admit. All of the research she once considered to be her most important, musings on string theory, on correlations between FEAR and Dark Matter and the Higgs, all devoid of meaning as a result of its exposure to the room. That was what she told herself, at least. When she believed that, she could think that removing it from the room would fix it, and that fixing it meant an effortless return to concepts that made sense.

It didn't. Somehow, she failed to notice that she was trading one world of nonsense for another. Impossible to predict. Stable only by technicalities.

Though her descent brought her closer in physical proximity to the missing matter, she still felt detached. Fragmented. The reaction was easy to blame for the pieces of her that were gone, and the loss of those portions, once responsible for constant reminders of her importance, discouraged her from thinking that she was capable of ever feeling whole again. She definitely didn't feel like she could patch the rift between her and Kostya; sometimes she wasn't sure she wanted to. She would have to find another source to supply her with a more meaningful state. Something that could feel stable again.

At the bottom of the stairs, she stopped and sat and pressed her face into the pillow made of comforting things that didn't feel comforting anymore. She couldn't do this, and all she was capable of was waiting for someone to find her instead. They would. It worked last time.

Or she would die against the stairs, which did not seem like an exaggeration in the slightest.