He stood like that for a long time, too long.
Rain streamed down his hair, his face, slipped under his collar, but he didn't notice.
Only his hand still rested on the lid, as though he could keep her here, prevent her from leaving.
A single falling raindrop hung suspended in the air for an instant, catching the reflection of a streetlamp inside itself.
It trembled, as if hesitating whether to fall any farther.
Then it broke free, slowly, almost lazily and shattered against the wet asphalt with a barely audible slap.
In that same moment the image vanished.
White screen.
Clean, blinding, without a single speck. Only silence and suddenly the click of a door.
Sharp, metallic, like a gunshot in an empty room.
Ethan stepped into the apartment.
The door closed behind him on its own, heavy, with an automatic closer that always hissed like a tired animal.
The apartment greeted him with near-tangible darkness. Black curtains were drawn tight; not a single ray of streetlight slipped through.
The air stood motionless, heavy, saturated with the smell of old coffee, dust, and something bitter that clung to the tongue.
Things lay exactly where they had been abandoned: Maria's jacket draped over the back of a chair, her scarf on the floor by the door, a pair of shoes at the threshold—everything frozen in the moment when life had still been normal.
Only the television in the corner pulsed with pale blue light, weak, flickering like the breathing of something dying.
It snatched random fragments from the gloom: the corner of a coffee table, the edge of the sofa, an empty cup on the floor.
Light from the outside world entered this place only through that screen.
Ethan took one step forward.
His legs buckled, not from exhaustion, but from the sudden void in his chest.
He tried to sit, first crouching, then simply collapsing to the floor, back against the wall.
The wall was cold, rough with old paint. He slid lower until he was fully seated, knees drawn to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs.
His head fell back, struck the wall with a dull thud.
He no longer understood what he was seeing.
His eyes were open, but unfocused; his gaze drifted across the room, catching on random glints.
Until a face appeared on the screen.
Well-groomed, smooth, too perfect. A vampire politician, one of those who appeared in the news every few days, with an impeccable smile and a voice polished to velvet.
He sat at a studio desk, bathed in soft lighting that made his skin look even more beautiful.
"…Our young citizen had no desire to cause harm," he said, choosing each word with care, as though laying them out on his palm for the camera.
"Humans are fragile… it's a regrettable feature of your biology. We compensate wherever possible, as the law requires.
The family will receive support. We do not abandon our own in trouble… nor those who happen to be nearby."
He smiled, thinly, sympathetically, but his eyes remained empty, like glass.
Ethan stared at the screen.
His eyes were wild, red from sleeplessness, from tears that had long since run dry, from rage that no longer fit inside him.
His pupils dilated, as though trying to swallow the image whole.
He's smiling while talking about her.
He doesn't even… regret it.
The thought struck his temple like a hammer.
Ethan surged to his feet—sharp, unnatural. His body reacted faster than his mind.
The remote slipped from his fingers—black, worn, paint chipped from the buttons. It hit the floor with a loud metallic clatter that made the curtains tremble in the apartment's silence.
He stepped forward—one step, then another.
He wanted to lunge at the screen, smash it with his fist, crush that smiling face into shards of glass, feel it crunch beneath his fingers.
He wanted to scream, howl, destroy everything that remained.
But his legs faltered.
Fear locked his knees. Helplessness fell over him like a heavy blanket.
What are you going to do?
What can you do?
You're alone.
You're nobody.
They won… They always win.
Ethan froze in the middle of the room, arms hanging limp, breathing ragged, chest rising and falling too fast.
The screen kept glowing. The politician continued talking about "harmonious coexistence," about "understanding differences."
His voice flowed evenly, soothingly—like poison administered slowly.
Ethan stared without blinking.
Then he slowly sank back to the floor—not sat, but simply collapsed, back against the wall. His head struck the plaster.
His eyes closed.
But the politician's face still lingered behind his eyelids—smiling, perfect, indifferent.
And in that darkness, in that silence, in that apartment where no one else breathed anymore, Ethan understood one thing with absolute finality.
He would not give up.
And suddenly—a sharp knock at the door.
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK.
Three blows—short, confident, without hesitation. The sound sliced through the apartment's silence like a knife through fabric.
It was too loud for this night, too real after everything that had felt like a nightmare.
Ethan jolted—whole body, sharp, as though shocked with electricity.
His breath caught in his throat, turning into a lump he couldn't swallow or exhale.
His heart plummeted, then surged upward, pounding chaotically, painfully.
His fingers—lying limp on his knees only seconds ago—began to tremble, fine and uncontrollable.
He rose slowly.
His legs felt foreign, heavy, as though filled with lead.
Each step echoed in his ears—dull, rhythmic, like the echo of his own pulse.
The hallway to the door stretched into three meters that felt like kilometers.
The floor creaked treacherously loud under his feet, though it had never creaked before.
The air in his lungs ran out; Ethan inhaled sharply through his nose, and the smell of the apartment, dust, old coffee, the lingering trace of her perfume that still drifted in the corners, hit him like a blow to the head.
He reached the door.
He stopped and pressed his ear to the wood, cold, smooth, smelling of varnish and time.
Beyond the door, silence. No footsteps, no breathing. Only thick, waiting quiet.
His fingers touched the handle.
The metal burned his skin with sudden, sharp cold, like ice.
Ethan clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached. He exhaled raggedly and turned the handle.
The door opened just a crack, a thin sliver, like the last thread of hope that this would be enough to keep the outside world from entering his home.
A draft from the stairwell rushed in, cold, tasting of dampness and cigarette smoke from the neighboring apartment.
Through the gap stood a man about forty-five. Tall, solid, broad-shouldered—not from a gym, but from a life that forces you to carry heavy loads and never bend.
A large cowboy hat on his head, frayed at the edges, faded leather. Dark, mirrored sunglasses, even at night he didn't remove them.
A long, dusty black coat hung on him almost to the floor, like a second skin.
His face was stone, no lines of fatigue, no shadow of emotion.
Only weathered, even skin and a mouth that had forgotten what a smile was.
He stood motionless, as though he had already been waiting for this exact moment for an hour.
As though he knew who would open the door, knew what kind of man stood behind it, and why he was here.
The man tilted his head slightly, not out of curiosity, but from old habit, the way someone accustomed to looking slightly down at others.
His voice was low, as though he hadn't had to raise it in years because people listened anyway.
"You Ethan Hitcher?"
Ethan didn't answer.
As though sound might tether him to this reality he wanted to escape forever.
He simply stood, holding the door on the chain of his gaze and breath, feeling the cold from the handle crawl up his arm to the elbow.
The man didn't move.
Didn't take a single step closer. He simply continued in the same even voice:
"You… don't need help?"
The question hung in the air not as a question, but as a statement.
He clearly didn't need an answer. He just waited. Looked through the dark lenses, and Ethan felt that gaze pass straight through him—seeing not only his face, but everything inside: the emptiness, the rage, the broken heart.
They stood in silence.
Through the narrow crack in the door they looked at each other.
The silence in the entryway grew dense, like fog.
Only somewhere far below, in the stairwell, a faucet dripped, monotonous, indifferent.
Ethan didn't know who this man was.
Didn't know if he was friend or enemy.
Didn't even know if he wanted to know.
But in that moment, in that silence, in that crack between door and stranger, for the first time in a long while he felt he was not alone.
And that terrified him more than loneliness.
Ethan slowly raised his gaze.
His face was empty, no anger, no hope, not even surprise. Only exhaustion etched into the skin, into the lines around his eyes and the folds at his mouth.
His eyes were glassy, extinguished, like bulbs that had burned out long ago but still glowed weakly on inertia.
He whispered, barely audible, lips hardly moving:
"I don't believe in God."
The words hung in the air like smoke from a cigarette long extinguished.
He began to close the door, slowly, thoughtfully, as though it weren't just a piece of wood on hinges, but the lid of a coffin he was sealing over his own fate.
The door moved centimeter by centimeter, creaking quietly, plaintively, as though protesting such an ending.
The gap narrowed to a centimeter, a narrow crack, like the last sliver of light in a dark room.
And in that instant a heavy man's foot in a worn cowboy boot slammed into the gap.
A dull thud.
Wood met hard sole; the sound was low, solid, like someone striking stone with a hammer.
The door shuddered but didn't close.
Ethan flinched, whole body, brief, like an electric shock.
His heart skipped a beat, then lurched forward, pounding erratically, painfully.
Through the narrow crack he could see the boot wedged like a crowbar, propping the door open.
The leather was coated in a thin layer of dust and old dirt, traces of long roads this man had walked without looking back.
The door trembled in Ethan's hands,fine, nervous, but it did not close.
He felt resistance,not merely physical, but something deeper, almost metaphysical.
As though the man on the other side refused to let him return to solitude.