"I'll tell you... about a past I thought I had buried, about the person I once was, and am no longer... and about the man who shaped me."
Wilde spoke with a weight in his voice, dragging behind him years of frost and silence. It wasn't a passing statement; it was the prologue to a vault long sealed—even from himself.
Lina sat across from him, her eyes fixed on his face. Inside her, a childlike hesitation fluttered, torn between wanting to understand and fearing to know more. Yet she didn't move, nor did she interrupt. She let him speak.
Outside, the wind howled like a language only the broken could understand. The creatures roared, pounding distant walls like starved ghosts.
He stared at a spot on the wall that didn't exist, and said:
"My childhood? It was an endless battle. I lived with my parents, but what they had wasn't a marriage... it was a war. Our home never knew warmth, never knew peace... Only shouting, broken dishes, and the quiet sobs of a boy who tried not to be heard."
He lifted his gaze, the residue of old memories glinting in his eyes, and continued:
"When I moved in with relatives, it wasn't much better. Only the walls changed. The cold remained. Over time, I split within. Two personas formed... One craved escape, indulgence, fury— The other sought meaning, screamed for purity, resisted."
He looked down at his scarred fingers, tangible proof of the war within:
"When I burned my fingers... I was obeying the weaker voice inside me, the one that pleaded: don't let yourself fall alone... don't surrender to what you've become."
Lina remained still, but her chest ached. His confessions stirred wounds of her own. She opened her trembling palm and slowly laid her hand atop his. It wasn't pity—it was a quiet yearning to understand a soul just as fractured.
> "He doesn't need saving, he needs someone who knows what it is to break." She thought in silence.
When she felt he had steadied, she whispered:
"And the photo? The nightmares?"
He went silent. Then a voice escaped him, frail as wind:
"He was my friend... no, more than a friend. He was my reflection. We survived together, built this shelter, shared bread, sleep, fear... stories."
He glanced at the photo on the table, eyes shimmering with something Lina couldn't name.
"That night... we forgot to close the door. The monsters came in. We screamed, we ran... But he tripped.
I turned back... and something tore inside me."
He lifted his head slightly.
"One voice screamed: 'Go back... don't leave him.' Another said coldly: 'Leave him. He'll slow you down. This is your chance.'
And the worst part? I listened to the second one."
He stopped. A tear fell. Then another. Then came the quiet sobbing:
"He looked at me... said nothing, but that look... I'll never forget it. It was betrayal. It was sorrow. It was acceptance."
Lina couldn't bear the sight of him like this. She didn't think, didn't weigh the risk. She simply pulled him into an embrace. Tightly. Fiercely. Silently promising that his sins didn't make him unworthy.
He cried. He cried like a child who had no refuge, no arms, but these.
Softly, almost trembling, she said:
> "No one is perfect... no one. We err, we regret, we try again. That's what makes us human. If you try—just try—then you deserve forgiveness. We'll try together. We'll survive... together. We'll heal... together."
Something inside him cracked open, and the warmth spilled in. He held her tighter. He whispered:
"I don't know if I deserve this... But you're the first person who's made me want to be more."
They stayed that way as the sounds of the beasts faded, and the morning light crept over the earth.
Wilde opened his eyes and saw her face, pale and glowing beneath the sun, her blue eyes carrying a fragile hope.
She smiled and said:
"Good morning..."
He smiled back, shyly, and pulled away just a little:
"Good morning."
They sat in silence. But this silence was different— gentler, a birth of something unnamed.
Before leaving, as always, he paused at the door, looked back, and offered a faint smile:
> "Thank you... I'll be back early."
Then he was gone.
She watched the closed door, and heard her thoughts speak aloud:
> "This feeling... Is this love? Can love begin with a single embrace? Or with the mutual confession of brokenness? Can it survive in a world collapsing?"