Secluded in his room, immersed in twilight's sorrow, Dash drifted at the periphery of his life.
He sat encased, a centerpiece of someone else's illusion. The worn folder weighed heavily in his hands, anchoring him to a past he couldn't undo.
The air settled, and he battled the stillness with every breath as the persistent odor of dust and decay marked time's unending advance.
Beyond the drawn curtains, the world continued without him, shrouding his isolation in bruised purples and grays.
Leo, his brother in name only, was a phantom, a specter of shared blood that offered no warmth.
He became a cipher, concealing his motives and thoughts as if behind a fortress. Dash didn't understand him, as though they hailed from different worlds.
The secrets between them weren't just unspoken; they were a vast, widening gulf.
The clock mocked him with every tick, and time stretched unbearably as the tension in Dash's gut twisted into a steel wire, pulled tense and unforgiving.
He waited, a statue carved from anxiety, for the mansion to exhale. He waited for the creaks to deepen into moans, for the last sliver of sunlight to vanish, amplifying the frantic thrum of his blood.
Dash stirred when the darkness had deepened enough to consume the unknown without a trace.
He descended into the basement's depths, a silent silhouette fading into the gloom.
His chest thudded with uneven force, and each step was a gamble, each breath short and perilous, as if his body might give out.
He advanced, driven by instinct and the dim, forbidden light of his comm-link, holding it like a smoldering ember.
He chased a gnawing suspicion, days blurring together in a persistent search.
He dug for proof that the Alucards, perhaps, his own family, were manipulated, their minds altered, and recollections stolen.
He hoped the basement, his last refuge underneath the home's ordinary facade, hadn't already been compromised.
The air whispered of buried mysteries and things dumped to rot, its dense quality filled with dust and a sour tang.
He felt unease crawl up his spine as he moved deeper into the gloom, the sense of being watched sharpening with every step.
He searched desperately, running his hands along dusty shelves and peering behind forgotten boxes, until his fingers brushed against a loose floorboard near the far wall.
The worn folder, tucked away almost out of sight, was there. Its cardboard cover was dog-eared, its corners soft with age. He pried it up, hidden under a stack of old newspapers, with trembling hands.
He opened it under the meager lamplight, carrying it back to his room, and the brittle pages inside crackled like dry leaves, revealing fragmented reports, coded entries, and chillingly objective notes concerning memory restructuring.
He feared the worst, and the page confirmed it, painting a cold, clinical picture of manipulation. The page pulsed with deception, each term catching in his throat like grit and fire.
A creeping ache spread like dark veins under the surface. A fractured, grotesque recollection rose from the depths of his mind, refusing to stay hidden.
That summer, his mother never boarded a plane. The sunlit postcards he'd held, smiling relatives, remote beaches, existed, elaborate lies, concealing a darker reality.
It was all made up.
The folder's cold, bureaucratic language labeled them "uncooperative subjects" and "unstable elements" neutralized, veiling fates far darker than a mere relocation.
A shadow lingered at the boundary of Dash's mind, vague, uneasy, teetering just beyond reach.
The intense light in the entry hall fractured through the stair banister like broken teeth. The window's glass swallowed his small palm as he pressed against it, leaning in like a child peering into a crypt.
He remembered standing there, frozen and quiet, watching not people's shadows, but bloated, shifting forms at the door. A slow, deliberate rhythm: something was being dragged. Someone.
The comforting image of being safely tucked in bed felt like a vicious lie, carefully implanted, not his reality but a mask over the truth.
The facade was cracking, revealing something far worse, something not of this world.
Dash swallowed hard, weighed down by the realization that his father might have orchestrated this erasure, scraping away trauma and replacing it with gentle falsehood.
Who else was touched? What other gaps haunted those around him?
He stumbled from his room, clutching the cold kitchen counter to steady himself, its solidity stark against his fractured mind.
His heart pounded louder than the fridge's hum in the still house. He never trusted his father, whose presence was cold and demanding.
This violation of his past wasn't fading naturally; it had been erased with unsettling precision. The worst part was the carefulness, the near-kindness in masking brutality with a soft lie. That control terrified him more than violence could.
Sweat dripped down his brow as his breath grew shallow. The folder's contents were real: trigger phrases, memory manipulation. If his father could reach into his mind, Leo ought to know.
Unsure how much Leo had uncovered, Dash felt the weight of this secret burning in his hands like a live wire.
Fingers trembling, he opened his comm-link and hovered over Leo's contact.
The screen blinked in the dark kitchen, waiting. He had to understand. He had to help.
Taking a shaky breath, Dash pressed 'call,' hoping Leo was still fighting, still listening.