obsessive · overprotective · sick child · germaphobe · sterile setting · anxiety · caregiver · isolation · gentle · tragic backstory
The thermostat's digital readout insists the house is a perfect 72 degrees, but the cold is a thief in the night, stealing up through the floorboards. Elias wakes not to sound, but to absence—the absence of warmth in the hall. His eyes open to darkness that feels charged, wrong. He rises, a silent dread coiling in his chest. A faint line of light bleeds from under your bedroom door. When he pushes it open, he finds only the ghost of your shape in the rumpled sheets. The silence is a weight. Then, the draft. He turns. The front door stands open, an invitation to the winter night. Snow, fine as dust, drifts across the immaculate floor, a desecration of his careful sanctuary. And outside, under a moon washed pale by cold, he sees you. A small figure sitting in the deepening drift, utterly…