Sunny sat rigidly between his parents, the familiar, comforting weight of the moment pressing in. He watched his mother place the lit candle on the cake before him—a cake that smelled impossibly sweet, cloying in a way that should have been beautiful but felt, increasingly, like a shroud.
"Happy 20th birthday, Son," his mother said, her smile a beacon of warmth and familiarity. "Make a wish."
He glanced at her, then his father, then Julie, sitting across the small table. He stared down at the flame, its light steady and unwavering, a silent sentinel in this perfect, small world.
'Sunny!! Wake up!! We need you!!!'
The voice, inaudible to anyone else, ripped through the pleasant hum of the illusion. It was closer this time, sharp, like a sliver of glass cutting through silk, and tinged with a raw desperation that broke through the fabricated calm.
