It had been a few days since the last scare. Since the moment Jeffrey's body trembled behind the curtain, since the doctors came rushing in with calm voices that didn't match their pacing. Theophilus hadn't seen him since. The curtain between them remained drawn. A quiet border.
Mornings were routine now. A checkerboard set up early by Ramus before either of them had eaten. Theophilus had gotten good. Six wins now. He didn't gloat—Ramus never took the game too seriously—but each small victory gave him something to measure. Something that meant he was still aware, still present.
They played quietly. The nurses came and went. Theophilus's arm had improved; he could move it now with some effort, though the doctors advised against pushing too far. The pain had dulled—mostly a throb now. His leg was a slower story, but healing too.
He had spoken to Lydia again—the social worker with the warm voice and tired eyes. She assured him his documentation was nearly sorted, only a few steps left. The problem wasn't just the papers; it was the accommodation too. That would take longer. Weeks, maybe months. It depended.
Outside, the morning sun stretched through the high windows. Ramus sat back in his usual chair, a half-smile lingering as he watched Theophilus make a risky move on the board. The machines beeped steadily in the background, their rhythm like a metronome, until suddenly—too suddenly—it was all Theophilus could hear. The beeping grew louder, closer, like they'd moved inside his skull. He flinched slightly and looked up.
Ramus hadn't moved. Just eyes on the board, thinking, quiet. The moment passed, the beeps faded to their normal sound again.
"You alright, son?" Ramus asked without looking.
Theophilus gave a small nod. "Just thinking."
It wasn't a lie. He was always thinking these days.
He thought about Jeffrey, somewhere behind that curtain. He thought about the way the doctor's voice dipped lower when he said, "His vitals are fine... but his well-being isn't." Whatever that meant. He thought about how it didn't move him like it had the first time. Not with the same spike of panic.
Instead, this time, the image of Jeffrey had quietly folded into that of Nate. Like two transparent layers over the same frame. Both too young for what they were going through. Both far too hopeful in the face of it. It bothered Theophilus, and not in a way he could explain out loud.
He remembered saying sorry to Nate once—years ago. Not because of something he'd done, but for something Nate didn't know. That Theophilus had never really let himself consider him a friend. Not because Nate hadn't earned it, but because Theophilus was too scared to believe in people anymore.
The fear wasn't of losing them. It was of believing in something good and then watching it collapse. Again.
He made his next move, a corner trap. Ramus chuckled.
"Six wins in a row," the old man said, leaning back.
"Luck," Theophilus said. But he didn't smile.
----
Breakfast arrived shortly after their game concluded.
"Smells better than it tastes, I bet," he muttered, eyeing the oatmeal with suspicion. "You ever think they cook this stuff with glue?"
"It's edible," he replied, not committing to any particular opinion.
After breakfast, the routine check-ups commenced.
"Sugar's stable today," she said, offering a reassuring smile.
"You're recovering well," she noted. "Still a few weeks away from full mobility, maybe three, but you're young. Your body knows how to rebuild."
The nurse gave a nod as she rolled up the clipboard and tucked it under her arm, her routine checks done for the day. Theophilus murmured something polite—he wasn't sure what exactly—and she returned the gesture before exiting with a quiet creak of the door. The monitors still blinked, their steady rhythm as dull as ever, the soft beeping fading into the background noise of the sterile room.
He shifted carefully, easing himself back onto the bed with a low breath. The blanket was still warm, folded the way the older nurse always liked to leave it—neat but lived-in. His arm ached as he adjusted the pillow beneath it, and his leg tugged in that dull way it always did when the medication had started to wear thin. He didn't grimace. He just stared up for a moment at the ceiling and let the white bulbs settle in his sight.
Across the room, Ramus sat still in his corner chair by the window, a faint halo of sunlight making a shape around his silhouette. His hands rested gently on his knees. Theophilus glanced once—just once—then closed his eyes. He tried not to think. Tried to clear his mind.
Then it came.
A quiet sound. Low. Slow. Like someone remembering how to speak in a language they hadn't used in years.
Old man Ramus began to sing.
No announcement. No shift in posture. No warning. Just a voice, husky and worn, slipping out like it had waited for quiet.
The tune wasn't long. It didn't need to be. The notes bent a little around the corners, as though the melody itself was older than him. There were whistles tucked between lines—soft and almost unsure—but never out of place. The kind of sound that doesn't reach your ears so much as slip beneath your skin.
Theophilus opened his eyes.
He didn't move. Didn't speak. Just watched the ceiling, listening. The song was familiar, not because he knew it, but because something in it pulled at a place he rarely let anyone near. A feeling more than a memory.
His mind drifted, unbidden, to his father. A memory, vague but powerful. His father's voice, rough and strangely tender. A song sung once while cleaning a rifle, while waiting on the edge of a quiet mission. A child sitting nearby, too young to understand the weight behind the melody, but old enough to remember the way it made the room feel still.
Tomorrow Awaits.
That was the song.
The image came like breath on a cold mirror—half there, half gone. A man in uniform. Tired eyes. A quiet tune between the smoke and dust of a ruined compound. A girl who didn't survive. A man who wasn't sure whether to sing out of mourning or guilt.
Theophilus blinked and let the song finish inside him.
Old man Ramus didn't ask if he liked it. He didn't say a word at all at first. Just let the room be quiet again.
Then he shifted, leaning back into his pillow with a soft sigh, the creak of his frame sounding more worn than usual. He smiled—not for anyone in particular, not for Theophilus, just… because he had to. Because the song deserved it.
"Good songs," Ramus said with a worn smile, his eyes reflecting a distant memory , a delayed cough escaping his mouth.
The room settled back into its usual quiet after Ramus's cough faded and his small comment lingered in the air. Theophilus kept his eyes closed, his head still propped gently against the pillow, but his ears were open. The melody that had just ended still played somewhere in his chest, that odd ache that songs tended to leave behind. It wasn't sadness entirely, nor warmth either—it was something in between. Something human.
Theophilus could feel that Ramus had more to say. There was a weight to the silence now, a stillness not from the absence of noise but from something unsaid. And, as expected, the old man eventually broke that silence.
"Adelyn" Ramus said again, softer now.
His voice didn't ask for a reply. It wasn't a statement either. It was something like a memory reaching the surface again, as if he hadn't spoken it so much as released it into the room.
Theophilus said nothing. His breathing remained steady, the soft hum of machines beeping and ticking continued as before, but inside his mind, something shifted. That name.Adelyn.There was weight to it, like it had held someone's world together once.
"We were fools, both of us," Ramus began, his voice low and comfortable. Not entirely aimed at Theophilus, not aimed at anyone, perhaps. "Met her in the late spring of my first year working in the northern fields. Nothing fancy. Just a cooperative settlement back then. I was hired to maintain the irrigation system, fix broken pumps, keep the rot from getting in the pipes. And her? She ran the community store. First thing I remember was her voice. Sharp. I'd say something and she'd cut me down with her words in half the time. Not cruelly, mind you. Just... quick. Smart. Like she already knew what I was gonna say and got bored waiting."
Theophilus let the story unfold. There was something calming in Ramus's tone. Something raw and relaxed, without performance.
"She hated my guts the first month. Kept calling me 'the mud boy' because I'd come in all dirty to grab spare parts or some dried fruit. I'd pretend to be annoyed, but I liked it. Liked the fight in her. Liked that she didn't smile easy. You had to earn it."
Ramus chuckled, soft and gravelly. "We argued about everything—how many sacks I took, what time I came in, whether I tracked too much muck into her shop. But she never told me to leave. And I never stopped showing up."
There was a pause. Theophilus opened his eyes briefly, just to glance at Ramus, who was now lying back against his pillow. His eyes weren't on the ceiling, but somewhere far beyond it.
"You don't realize you're falling into something until you're in it. It just becomes your routine, doesn't it? I'd come in late on purpose just to hear her sigh that sigh of hers, that exasperated one, as if I were the burden she'd chosen in life."
He took a breath, soft and shaky. "One day she made me tea. No fight. No snark. Just set the cup down without looking at me. Thought something was wrong. But it was just... her way of saying she liked me. That was her language. And it said more than any kiss might've."
Theophilus imagined it clearly—two people in a dusty old co-op, stubborn and quiet, always at odds but never apart. There was a strange beauty to it, that kind of affection built not on grand gestures but in shared mornings and mundane routines.
"We didn't marry. Didn't talk about it. Life had other plans. I moved south for work. Thought we'd see each other again. That distance wasn't much. That I'd come back after the season."
Ramus swallowed. Theophilus heard it.
"But I didn't. Not right away. Got sick. Was too proud to write, too ashamed to say I was struggling. By the time I went back, the store was boarded up. She was gone."
His voice cracked, just a little, like wind brushing against something brittle.
"I asked around. Took me two months to find out she'd passed. Nothing grand. Just... complications. She was alone. Never married. People say she smiled more in the last few months, but no one knew why. I like to think she remembered me, even when I'd done nothing to deserve it."
Theophilus felt something well up in his throat. Not tears. But something.
Ramus turned his head slightly. His eyes were calm, though glistening a little in the morning light.
"Some people aren't fireworks, kid. They're campfires. Quiet, constant. They burn low but warm you for years. She was mine."
The room held still for a long time.
Then Ramus smiled faintly, his old face relaxed.
"Never told anyone that. Don't know why I told you. Maybe 'cause you've got that look. Like you've left some people behind too."
Theophilus said nothing, because he couldn't. He didn't have the words, not yet. He closed his eyes again, but not to sleep. Just to think.
Outside, the sun rose slowly, casting soft light on the pale blue curtains.
Ramus didn't speak again for a while.
And neither did Theophilus.