Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sound splits the quiet like a blade, sharp and merciless, tearing me out of the half-dream I had been clinging to. My hand flails across the nightstand until I silence the alarm with more force than necessary. The sudden quiet rings louder than the beeping, and the room settles again into its dim, blue stillness.
For a moment, I lie there, watching the thin strip of moonlight drape itself across the slanted ceiling. The cold outside the blankets breathes against my skin, a reminder that comfort is a luxury I don't get to keep for long.
With a sigh that feels too old for my seventeen years, I swing my legs out of bed. The air bites at my shins as if punishing me for daring to leave the warmth. I sit there a moment, elbows on knees, hands over my face, forcing my thoughts into some kind of order.
Another day.
Another string of responsibilities.
Another morning without answers.
When I finally stand, the room greets me with its sparse familiarity. The armoire with its peeling paint. The desk crowded with papers, ink-stained notebooks stacked like forgotten promises. And, of course, the bookshelf—my only indulgence. Rows of mismatched spines, dog-eared corners, and whispered worlds I once escaped into.
A tightness catches in my chest, sharp and sudden. It happens every time I look at that bookshelf—every time I remember her voice, soft as dusk, reading beside me.
"Escape is always easiest found in the pages of another person's world," Mother would murmur, brushing my hair back with slow fingers.
She used to tuck me under her arm as she read, even long after I'd grown tall enough to pretend I didn't need it. But the memories feel too heavy now, so I shove them back where they came from.
I move to my desk, smoothing out pages from last night's writing session. The ink had dried in uneven streaks, the sentences looping into messy tangles. Writing has always been my refuge, but lately even that feels harder. Like the words are grains of sand slipping through my fists faster than I can catch them.
The routine pulls me onward. Shower. Dress. Pretend the day isn't already exhausting.
By the time I reach the tiny kitchen, the sky outside has started to pale into a foggy gray. The cupboards are embarrassingly empty—two eggs, half a loaf of bread. Breakfast, if I'm generous. Survival, if I'm honest.
I crack the eggs into a pan, listening to the faint hiss as they meet the heat. The smell is warm but thin, not quite enough to fill the hollow place inside me, but enough to pretend.
"Lorean!" I call, raising my voice so it echoes down the short hall. "Wake up! Breakfast is almost done!"
Silence.
I grit my teeth. She's probably cocooned in blankets, drooling into her pillow, blissfully unaware of the time.
"Lorean," I try again, louder this time, and with that particular sharpness big sisters develop when they've been raising someone who isn't theirs to raise.
Still nothing.
I turn off the stove and march toward her room, the floorboards cold beneath my feet. I push open her door to find exactly what I expected: my fourteen-year-old sister sprawled sideways across the bed, hair fanned out like a halo gone rogue, one arm dangling to the floor.
"Up," I say, tapping her foot. "We're late."
She mumbles something unintelligible into her pillow.
"Lorean…"
Her eyes finally blink open—sleepy, soft, and far too innocent for the life we've been forced into.
"Five more minutes," she whispers.
"You said that yesterday."
"But yesterday I meant it."
I sigh, leaning against the doorframe. "We don't have time today. Please, Ren. I need your help this morning."
Something shifts in her expression—subtle, but there. An understanding we don't talk about. A quiet acknowledgment that she knows how much weight rests on my shoulders, because she's been watching me haul it every day since the night our parents disappeared.
She sits up slowly, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. "Fine. I'm moving."
"Thank you."
I leave her to get dressed while I return to the kitchen, plating the eggs and toast. They look small on the cracked ceramic dish, but it's enough. It has to be.
We eat in silence, the quiet comfortable but fragile.
Outside, the sun is crawling up behind the horizon, painting the street in dull morning light. The day stretches ahead of us, long and demanding. As always.
Nothing about this morning feels different.
And yet, something stirs beneath my ribs—an unease, like the hush before a storm.
I don't know why.
I don't yet understand how everything will change.
How one stranger's words will unravel the life I've been stitching together with frayed thread.
But I will soon.
Because somewhere in the city that morning—somewhere in the thick, shifting fate of it all—
an old man is looking for me.
And he carries the first piece of a story I was never meant to write.