Chapter Six: Footsteps in the Snow
The next morning dawned colder still, the air biting even through the blanket Lila had draped over Syan before leaving for school. He'd heard her shuffling around earlier, muttering about a hole in her sneaker and how she'd "fix it later." She'd left with a quick "see you soon," her voice bright but distracted, and then the house had slipped back into its familiar hush. Syan hated these moments most—the stretch of hours where the silence swallowed everything, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
He tried to focus on the sounds outside: the faint crunch of snow under someone's boots down the street, the distant bark of a dog, the low groan of a car engine struggling to start. Normal sounds, proof the world was still turning beyond these walls. But today, they felt off, like the air itself was holding its breath.
A sharp creak from the porch snapped him out of his haze. His heart thudded, a rare jolt of adrenaline he couldn't act on. The porch steps were old, warped from years of neglect, and they only creaked like that under weight—real weight, not just the wind. He strained to listen, his head tilted as far as it could go. Another creak, then a muffled thump, like someone brushing snow off their shoes.
"Lila?" he called, though he knew it couldn't be her. She'd barely been gone an hour, and school didn't let out until noon. No answer came, just the soft scrape of something—a key?—against the door.
The lock clicked. The door swung open with a groan, letting in a gust of icy air that stung his face. Footsteps followed, heavy and deliberate, nothing like Lila's quick, light tread. Syan's mind raced, grasping for explanations. Mrs. Carter sometimes checked in, but she always knocked first, her voice announcing her before she even crossed the threshold. This was someone else.
"Who's there?" he said, his voice sharper than he meant it to be. It cracked on the last word, betraying the fear he tried to hide.
The footsteps stopped. For a moment, there was only silence, thick and suffocating. Then a voice—low, rough, familiar in a way that made his stomach twist. "Syan?"
It was his father.
The recognition hit like a stone dropping into deep water, ripples spreading through him. He couldn't move, couldn't shout, but his mind screamed. Four years. Four years since that voice had promised to come back, since it had walked out and left them to rot. And now it was here, standing in the doorway like nothing had changed.
"What are you doing here?" Syan asked, his tone cold, steady despite the chaos inside him.
A shuffle, then the door clicked shut, cutting off the wind. "I… we heard you were still here. Figured we should check in." The hesitation in his father's voice was new, a crack in the gruff confidence Syan remembered.
"We?" Syan latched onto the word, his chest tightening. "She's with you?"
"Yeah. Outside, in the car. She didn't know if…" His father trailed off, boots scuffing the floor as he shifted his weight. "How've you been?"
The question was so absurd, so hollow, that Syan almost laughed. How had he been? Blind, crippled, abandoned—how did he think he'd been? "Fine," he said instead, the word a blade. "Lila's kept us going."
A pause, then a heavy sigh. "She's a good kid. Always was."
"She's more than that," Syan snapped, the anger he'd buried clawing its way up. "She's the only reason I'm still here. Where were you?"
The silence stretched, taut and brittle. When his father spoke again, his voice was quieter, almost broken. "We messed up, Syan. I know that. We didn't know how to handle… this. You. Everything. But we're here now."
"Now," Syan echoed, bitter. "After four years of nothing. Why?"
Another shuffle, closer this time. He could smell the faint tang of motor oil on his father's coat, a ghost of the man who'd once fixed cars in the driveway. "We want to make it right. For you. For Lila."
Syan's mind spun. Make it right? What did that even mean? Apologies wouldn't undo the years of silence, wouldn't give him back his sight or his legs. And Lila—what did they want with her? To take her away, like she'd feared? He couldn't let that happen. She was his reason, his light. Without her, the stillness would win.
The door creaked again, and a softer voice cut through the tension. "Syan?" His mother. Hesitant, fragile, the way she'd sounded in those last days before they left.
He didn't answer. He couldn't. The air was too thick, the past too close. All he could do was wait, trapped as always, while the shadows of his old life stepped back into the room.