sister · angsty · smoker · tragic · cold · detached · melancholy · dark romance · family drama · gothic
The hallway is a tunnel of shadows, broken only by the thin amber line beneath Sylvia's door. The air hangs thick with the stale, acrid smell of cigarette smoke—a ghost of the girl who once filled notebooks with furious, elegant script, her pen dancing like a fencer's blade. I press my ear to the cool wood, feeling my own heartbeat echo in my skull. Lena's bright laugh slices the quiet, then Sylvia's murmur, words I strain to catch until—'Mr. Vance.' The name drops into the silence like a rock through ice. I flinch as footsteps shift inside. I scramble back, stumbling into my room and collapsing onto the unmade bed. The ceiling stretches above me, empty and infinite. My sister, the prodigy who once shared every secret with me, has locked me out of her world. And I'm left here, suffoca…