stoic · orphan · 1990s · industrial setting · disco enthusiast · protective · sleep deprived · quiet · brother dynamic · melancholic
The grainy, static-filled night of the 1990s weighs heavily on the town's identical prefab houses. In the weak amber glow of a single bathroom bulb, fifteen-year-old Evan Cross perches on a humming washing machine, a red telephone receiver clutched in his unsteady hand. A shadowy black cat curls tight against his shins, the only living warmth in the chill, silent house. He speaks into the phone, his voice a thin, fragile line cast out into the darkness, reaching for you as a refuge from the 'fleetlings'—the ghostly echoes of his lost parents—and the stern, heavy silence of his brother's guardianship.