The moths bounced off the light bulb in the kitchen, making small bumping noises. Ethan, sitting on several cushions with embroidered covers on one of the wooden chairs, was doing his homework in his paperback notebook and scribbling down various mathematical operations on the side of the sheet from time to time. The rest was silence, profound trepidation.

He had remained in the same position, biting the end of the pencil, while crossing out and redoing what he had just written. The boy glanced at the clock on the wall and looked through the open door in the living room. He followed the low sound of the television and found his grandmother asleep on the couch, wrapped in a blanket that she had knitted, with the remote control still in her hand.

Ethan tiptoed over to her and took the remote to turn off the TV, and returned to the kitchen to get his school textbooks. He looked at the clock once more, and his gaze swung between his notebook and the dirty dishes from that night's dinner. He ended up closing his exercise book. Ethan walked across the kitchen in search of the small stool and placed it in front of the kitchen sink. He then began to wash the dishes.

It was past midnight when he was finished. He finally made his way to the room he shared with Theo down the corridor, dragging his feet. He opened the door with great caution to avoid any squeaking sound, and lay down on his bed, covering himself with the blankets. Ethan verified that in the bed next to him, Theo slept with his back turned to him, before taking out a small flashlight from the drawer of the bedside table so that he could work on his homework. With difficulty but determination, he started writing in his notebook in the slightly illuminated darkness of the room.

As time passed, exhaustion started to creep up on him. He rubbed his strained eyes. The flashlight he held in his left hand, with the little luminosity it had left, began to flicker as a result of the excessive use Ethan had given it for countless nights, until it ultimately extinguished. He sighed heavily in defeat. But he didn't stop writing. At least not until his eyes got tired from the tremendous exertion he was putting on them. All he could do was shut his notebook and put it on the bedside table along with the flashlight.

Staring at the ceiling of the room, Ethan tried to empty his mind of that buzzing noise that clouded his thoughts and numbed his feelings. He stretched out his arms and felt the cold, empty space of the mattress with his hands. Ethan took a deep breath and turned over in his bed holding on to the blankets tightly, but not because of the cold. It didn't matter if he closed his eyes, the darkness would still be there. Omnipresent and lurking. Cornering him.

But then he saw it. The light.

With his face to the wall, Ethan saw out of the corner of his eye a light coming from beyond his back. He turned lazily, frowning at the sudden brightness, figuring that it was the small flashlight that had miraculously been brought back to life. He reached out to the table and fumbled around looking for the small device. When he grabbed it, he pressed the off button repeatedly.

But the light didn't go out.

No matter how many times he did it, it would never go out. For it was not from the flashlight he was holding in his hands where the light was coming from. That's what he discovered when he sat up in his bed, irritated by the lack of sleep, and saw it. Theo. And the blue light.

His entire body stiffened.

His little brother had turned over in bed and was holding tightly the necklace he had always seen his mother wear. Ethan got up and walked with trembling legs towards Theo, who slept without showing any expression of distress on his face. When Ethan stretched out his arm, not sure what to do, the light from the necklace intensified and flooded the room with its light, causing Ethan to stumble with one of the toys Theo had left on the floor, and fall. Unable to stand up and shivering on the ground, Ethan fixed his panicked gaze on Theo. He didn't have the courage to get any closer.

Hasty, steady footsteps approaching echoed in the hallway. The moment his grandmother opened the door to their bedroom, she immediately grasped the situation. No expression of doubt or fear crossed her face. She walked across the room to the youngest child's bed and knelt down beside Theo. Holding her hand over the light that flowed from the necklace, she began to whisper in an unfamiliar tongue. Then, the light faded into nothingness. The bright red of her eyes had already disappeared when she turned to look at Ethan, letting out a sigh of relief as soon as she saw that he was all right, at least physically. She tried to get up, but a sudden wave of dizziness hit her and forced her to stay in that position, with one hand on her forehead. Ethan jumped up and came to her aid, despite his poor emotional state of mind.

"Grandma," he said, tears threatening to form in his eyes. "Are you okay?" He helped her sit up in his bed without being able to stop the shaking of his hands.

"Just a slight headache," she said. "It's normal." She looked at the math books on the floor and then at Ethan. "Are you hurt?"

Ethan shook his head vigorously and his lips pressed into a firm line as he held back the tears that were beginning to blur his vision. He hoped the darkness could hide them.

"I fell asleep." His grandmother watched Theo, who was unaware of everything that had just happened. "I'm sorry. That must have scared you."

Ethan looked down at his hands, trying to calm his nerves.

"Can you go back to sleep?" She pulled back the sheets and Ethan slowly got into bed.

"Will it happen again?" Ethan asked in a whisper, and his anxious eyes looked for an answer in his grandmother's facial expression.

"No, it won't." She stroked Ethan’s hair affectionately. Then, she picked up his books and put them on the bedside table. "You don't have to worry about any of this, okay? I'm here now."

Ethan curled up with the blanket and wiped away the tears that had slipped down his cheeks.

"There's..." he said. "Is there anything I can do?

"There's nothing that you haven't done that wasn't enough." Her lips formed a genuine smile, but her eyes, around which wrinkles appeared, glowed with sadness and sorrow. "More than enough, Tan."

"But, Theo—"

“Theo will be fine as long as we're by his side.” She tucked him in. “And I'll be here with you as long as you need me to be. Even if you get sick of me.” She glanced at Theo. "It's not his fault so try to be good to him. Don't fight too much."

"We weren't fighting..."

“Mhm.” She arched his eyebrows. "Let's pretend I believe you." She smiled as she paused. "Also, thank you for the dishes, sweetie. You're always one step ahead of me."

"It's nothing."

"It's not," she answered. "I'll help you with your homework tomorrow, yeah?"

Ethan nodded, closing his eyes, about to succumb to sleep. The palpitations in his chest had slowed down and his body rested, without any energy left, on the mattress. He felt the warmth of his grandmother's hand caressing his face. A small spark of light. For a second, even if it was only briefly, that touch gave him relief from his nightmares, from his terrors. A sense of calm spread through his body and, although temporary, he could feel that he wasn't as alone as he had thought he was. It was a strange, melancholic feeling. The tightrope he had been walking on disappeared and he was able to start walking on solid ground. Not as steady as he would have wished it to be, but, at least, one step at a time.