ONE YEAR LATER…

He had tried it all.

White noise. Then brown noise. The kind that promised to soothe the nerves, like a lullaby made of static. Once, he played whale calls—haunting and low, like echoes from a dream he couldn’t quite reach. Other nights, he let the soft patter of digital rain fill the room, or the hiss of ASMR voices brushing past his ears in murmured lullabies. Nothing ever carried him where he needed to go.

Sleep remained just out of reach—taunting him, like a mirage on the edge of a desert he’d wandered for over a year.

Silence, he thought, would be his last resort. Pure, default stillness. But in the absence of sound, the dark pressed in closer. Thoughts flooded in like insects through a cracked window—skittering, biting, relentless. The air grew thick, dense with invisible weight, like a storm cloud had settled in his lungs.

It felt like something unseen had crept into the room and laid its hand over his mouth. Not gently. Not kindly. The pressure was visceral—hot, fleshy, suffocating. As if he’d been caught mid-scream and forced into stillness.

And all he could do was lie there, eyes open in the pitch black, aching for peace that refused to come.

Sleep had kept its distance ever since that night.

When it did come, it brought no comfort—only vivid, pulsing nightmares. He’d find himself running again, ten years old, lungs raw, legs pumping through a dark and hazy void. Behind him, something feral thundered in pursuit. It had no face, just the guttural sound of snarls, low and guttural like something born from hell. And eyes—deep crimson, glowing like coals in the black, hungry and full of purpose. Razor-like teeth flashed in the dark, always closer than the last time.

He was always running. Always afraid. Always that boy—trapped in a loop with no exit.

And then—

Snap.

He jolts awake.

The dream breaks apart like shattered glass. His chest rises and falls in rapid bursts, sweat already trailing down his brow, clinging to his temples. The pounding in his ears drowns out everything else—every breath, every thought.

He’d stopped wearing shirts to bed three months ago. Some part of him believed the cool air against his skin might help—might make him feel less like he was suffocating. But it never did. If anything, it left him feeling exposed. Not physically, but inwardly—like every bruise, every scar, every wrong thing about him was on display. Even now, he pulls the comforter tight to his chin, cocooning himself from a world that isn’t watching. No one sees him here. Not anymore.

His father stopped entering his room three years ago.

But the silence upstairs doesn’t mean peace. The bruises say otherwise. The one just beneath his ribs, deep violet fading at the edges, still twinges when he moves. A gift from the last outburst. One misstep, one wrong tone of voice, one unfinished chore—that’s all it takes. Still, he tells himself it’s healing.

That should count for something.

The moment his eyes open, he’s out of bed and moving, heading straight for the bathroom like it’s a finish line. The hot water hits his skin with a hiss, but he doesn’t flinch. Instead, he leans into it. Lets the steam build around him until it swallows the mirror, the tiles, the world. His chest rises, nostrils flare, and muscles unclench.

To most, the heat would be unbearable. But for Quynten, it’s a purge. A baptism. As though with every drop, he’s washing away the things he isn’t ready to name.

Burning away the pieces he never asked to carry.

His hair, a cascade of thick, dark curls, falls to his waist, swaying with effortless grace as the moisture tightens each coil into springy, defined locks. His skin gleams under the heavy stream of water. He keeps his eyes closed, unhurried, letting the warmth soak into him as he scrubs and rinses his skin clean.

His mind drifts toward the day ahead, though no real eagerness stirs in him. Moving without hurry, he dries himself with deliberate care, smoothing rich oils into his dark skin until it gleams with a quiet luster, the scent of sandalwood and something sweeter clinging to him like a second skin.

He pulls on a pair of undergarments, then slips into dark slacks that hug his waist just right, the fabric settling with a clean, tailored fall along his legs. A dark green shirt follows—loose, draping over his frame, the hem grazing the tops of his thighs. It skims his shape but leaves enough room to hide in, a quiet armor between himself and the world waiting outside.

Perched on the edge of his bed, Quynten leans down to lace up his black boots, his fingers moving with slow precision. The leather creaks softly beneath his grip.

A sudden rustling outside his door breaks the quiet—followed by the heavy grunt of his father descending the stairs. Quynten stiffens, his hand pausing mid-knot. For a second, he’d almost believed the house was empty, that his father had already left for work. A glance at the clock on his nightstand confirms the time: half past eight.

Too late for second guesses.

He exhales through his nose, tying the final knot and rising to his feet. His day stretches out in front of him—three classes, technically. Two back-to-back in the morning, a long stretch of dead time, and then one more in the afternoon at two-fifteen. After that, the part he dreads most: the mandatory hour in Dr. Simmons’ office.

Therapy hadn’t been his idea. It still didn’t feel like his choice.

Sitting across from someone paid to excavate his mind, picking through his broken pieces like they were scraps to be classified, labeled, and filed away—it gnawed at him. Every session felt like stepping into a trap he couldn’t claw his way out of.

And yet, Marco had insisted.

Had cornered him one night, voice low and serious, after everything had fallen apart—after that black, hollow night when Quynten’s world caved in and his mother was stolen from him.

“You can’t keep it all inside,” Marco had said. “You’ll drown.”

Maybe he already was.

Maybe that was the part no one could fix.

“AN ANIMAL ATTACK,” the headline screamed across the top of the local news site, as if it were some trashy tabloid story rather than the brutal truth. Bold, heavy letters blared across the page, alongside a photo of his mother—captured mid-laugh, her dark hair cascading over her shoulders, her almond-shaped eyes catching the light like polished stones.

It took him a moment to place it.

The photo had been snapped at a family reunion years ago, he realized—the one where Uncle Noah lingered awkwardly in the background, caught mid-conversation, where the air had been thick with barbecue smoke and easy laughter. Back when things still felt whole. Back when his mother’s smile wasn’t such a rare, precious thing.

He didn’t know how the network got their hands on that picture. No one had asked.

What he did remember—clear as broken glass under bare feet—was the fury in his father’s voice. Harsh, guttural, as he tore into someone over the phone, spitting venom at whatever reporter or intern had decided they could plaster Kalana’s face across the internet without permission.

The station, apparently, had reached out to the closest living relative. His father had refused to speak. That left Aunt Sefina—distant, opportunistic, a name he hadn’t heard in years.

The network didn’t care about silence. They wanted a quote, a soundbite, a grieving face to complete their story. And Aunt Sefina had given it to them.

Quynten wanted to feel angry with her. Wanted to curse her name for opening her mouth to strangers, for parading Kalana’s death under their fluorescent lights. But when he scrolled through the article, the words blurring at the edges of his vision, all he could do was fold into himself.

And cry—where no one else could see.

An animal attack.

That’s what they claimed. That’s what he was told to believe.

Quynten hated how easily the words settled into the cracks of his mind, hated that he clung to them because there was nothing else. No other explanation. No other version of events that made sense in a world that had already stopped making sense.

She had been getting off her shift at the hospital—still in her scrubs, probably tired, probably dreaming about getting home—when it happened. When something tore through her like she was nothing. Ripped apart, chewed up, discarded like trash. Like she was never meant to be anything more than a body to be dragged and forgotten.

The image hit him so hard he choked on it.

He remembered the way the reporter described it in the article—clinical, detached, almost smug in their horror. As if painting her final moments with blood and gore would win them more clicks. And then, to stitch her back together in a neat little line—beloved sister, daughter, mother, and wife—like that would somehow soften it. Like those pretty words could erase the vile things they’d said about her.

Her life, her death, paraded on a public stage for anyone with a Wi-Fi signal to gawk at.

Quynten’s fists clenched so tightly his nails bit into his palms.

He despised it. All of it. The headlines, the cheap sympathy wrapped around the brutality of her ending like a rotting bow.

When Quynten steps downstairs, he finds his father in the kitchen, hunched over the old square table—the same battered wood where, once upon a time, family dinners stretched long into the night. Back when his mother’s laughter could still soften the sharp edges of the house. Back when conversations, though quieter with the years, still filled the space with something that resembled warmth.

Now the silence feels colder. Brittle.

His father doesn’t look up. Doesn’t speak.

He sits there, head bowed over a newspaper he isn’t reading, as if Quynten doesn’t exist. As if the boy who once sat at that table too, who once belonged here, had long since vanished with the woman they both lost.

Quynten is nothing more than a ghost to him now—seen only when necessary, acknowledged only when convenient. Unless there’s a task to bark out or an accusation to throw, his father offers nothing. No glance. No greeting. Nothing.

Not since that night.

A sour heat coils in Quynten’s gut. His stomach churns, bile threatening to claw its way up his throat. He swallows it back, the burn lingering like a warning.

He presses forward, silent, unseen.

He thinks about making the first move.

Maybe a simple “Good morning,” or a half-hearted “How did you sleep?”—something light, something thoughtful, just like Dr. Simmons once suggested during one of their sessions. Quynten doesn’t remember the whole conversation, only the core of it: Try. Just try to reach out.

But even the thought of it knots his stomach.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to connect with his father. Somewhere deep down—buried under the weight of silence and bruised memories—he does. But it’s the reaction he fears.

The clipped, cutting words. The withering look of annoyance, like Quynten was an insect buzzing too close, something to swat away.

He can already feel it before it even happens—the dismissal, the way it would hollow him out without even raising a voice.

What’s the point?

The question settles heavy in his chest, heavier than hunger, heavier than grief. He tightens his jaw and keeps the words trapped where they belong—swallowed down, locked behind his teeth.

Better to say nothing at all.

He moves to the counter and busies himself with breakfast, forcing the motions into something that looks normal.

Normal people eat in the morning. Normal people fill their stomachs before stepping into the day.

He repeats it like a prayer he doesn’t believe in.

His appetite is a hollow thing, barely flickering, but he toasts a bagel anyway. Watches the coils of the toaster glow red-hot. Watches the seconds drag out longer than they should.

When he finally tears a piece off and pushes it past his lips, the taste blooms bitter on his tongue, heavy and wrong. He forces it down, feeling it catch in his throat like a stone. His stomach heaves in warning, his body begging him to spit it out, to claw it back up.

Instead, Quynten drops his gaze to his boots, fixes his eyes there, and swallows hard.

Four more bites, he tells himself. Just four more and you’re done.

He chews mechanically, each swallow scraping like broken glass.

Pretending. Enduring.

As his father rises to rinse out his coffee mug, Quynten opens his mouth—just slightly—the shape of a word hovering at the edge of his tongue.

Have a good day.
Be safe.
Maybe even—Love you, Dad.

That last one tastes almost foreign now.

He used to say it all the time when he was little, back when hope still clung stubbornly to his ribs. His father never said it back, not once, but Quynten had said it anyway—offering it like a gift that was never unwrapped. Somewhere along the years, those words dried up inside him, shriveling into something small and unreachable.

He still respected his father. Still loved him, in a way that clung no matter how many scars he carried, no matter how often he convinced himself he deserved the bruises. Had to deserve them, he reasoned. Otherwise, what would it mean?

But now, standing there, the words wedge themselves in his throat, refusing to surface.

Nothing comes out. Nothing at all.

Instead, there’s just a passing glance—cool, indifferent—from his father, a flicker of acknowledgment that burns more than a slap.

Then the door creaks open, hinges whining, and his father is gone.

Without a word.

Just like always.