🌌 THE NIGHT:
The night was heavy with silence. No moon lit the sky, and the road stretched out in darkness, so empty it felt as if the whole city was holding its breath. A boy walked along the shadowed path, his footsteps echoing faintly against the stillness. The darkness pressed close around him, yet he did not falter. There was no fear in his stride—only a quiet, steady calm.
The streetlights were sparse, flickering weakly as if struggling to stay alive. The occasional rustle of dry leaves stirred by the wind was the only sound to break the silence. Still, the boy pressed forward until the narrow road gave way to a vast driveway, where a grand mansion loomed ahead. Its tall gates and high walls rose like a fortress, the faint glow of old lamps casting jagged shadows across its surface.
He stepped inside. The great hall swallowed him in its dimness, heavy with authority and judgment. Seated in a large chair at the center was his father—stern, cold-eyed, his presence commanding the room like an iron wall.
"Why are you so late?" his father's voice cut through the air. "Where have you been? Look at your brother—he handles the company's work, goes to school, and still manages to lead his basketball team. And you?"
The man's eyes narrowed, his tone sharp and unforgiving.
"You are just like your mother—weak, incapable, useless."
The words struck like blades, each syllable carving into the boy's chest. His throat tightened, but he said nothing. He simply turned away, climbed the stairs in silence, and shut the door to his room with a hollow thud.
But his true refuge was not his bedroom. Hidden behind it lay a secret room—a place cloaked in shadows, a sanctuary where he kept the pieces of himself no one else could see. He slipped inside. Darkness smothered the walls, broken only by a faint sliver of light seeping through the curtains.
His hand found the switch. With a click, the room burst into pale light—
and he froze.
There, standing inside, was his brother. A camera in his hand. The flash lit the room in sharp bursts as he captured photographs—of the walls, of the shadows, of him.
The boy's breath caught. Before he could speak, his brother lowered the camera, cast him a brief, unreadable glance, and walked out without a word, leaving only the fading echo of his footsteps and the cold sting of the flash behind.
And then, like a wave crashing into him, the boy's mind slipped into a flashback—
His mother's gentle hands brushing his hair, her soft smile as she placed a toy in his lap. The warmth of her embrace, the tenderness in her voice.
And his brother—kneeling beside him in the garden after a fall, bandaging his scraped knee with quiet care, speaking to him with kindness, with love.
The memory wrapped around him like a distant dream—fragile, fleeting, yet unbearably real.
And with that memory lingering in his heart, the story faded into silence.