Cover art designed by Zach McAllister.
He stood in the corner office, high above the sleepless city, where neon bled into smog and nothing below cared who lived or died. The glass was clean. Too clean. Like the room had never been touched by life, only watched from the outside.The man didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Behind him, a body sagged—sprawled against the leather, leaking into the grain.
The rasping breaths came slow, wet, like death was dragging its feet just to be cruel. But he heard none of it. The buzz in his head was louder now, eating everything else—steady mixed with ringing, humming with something he couldn’t name.
He stared into the skyline, but saw nothing. Just a city that never stopped, never paused, never asked. And somewhere inside that hum, behind the hum, was the old feeling.
The one he hadn’t felt in years. The one that apparently never truly left.
The sound never left him—not when he stepped out of the executive office, not when he passed row after row of ghost-lit cubicles that hadn’t seen a soul in hours. It followed him down the corridor, nested somewhere deep in his skull.
The floor was polished, the air recycled, and nothing human lingered—not in the light, not in the silence.
He reached the elevator before he even noticed his left hand trembling. Not from fear. Not from regret. It was fury—raw and silent, blooming up his wrist like blood that hadn’t yet spilled.
Something old had stirred. And it was shaking loose.
The parking garage was concrete and quiet, lit by sickly overhead tubes that flickered like they were trying to remember how to die. His footsteps echoed, sharp against the silence, too crisp to be casual— like someone was supposed to answer back.
Every car he passed looked abandoned, even the new ones. Glass smudged with ghost-fingerprints, doors shut like tombs. He slid his key into the lock, opened the door, and dropped inside like gravity had more hands than usual.
The moment the engine turned over, the sound in his head shifted. No longer just buzzing—now it had rhythm. Now it had teeth.
Static in the marrow. Buried too deep to silence. Too loud to ignore.
He gripped the wheel too tight, knuckles white against the leather, the hum pulsing in sync with his veins. As he pulled out of the garage, the city swallowed him. Streetlights smeared across his windshield like bruises, and the hum grew louder, climbing behind his eyes, under his skin, deep into the base of his skull.
He shook his head. Tried to focus. Tried to drive like a man who hadn’t left someone dying behind.
Like the world still followed rules.
Then the noise inside him surged—like an old radio broadcast screaming back to life. It filled his chest, his throat, his arms.
He swerved.
Hard.
The headlights of an oncoming car bloomed in front of him—white-hot, godlike, merciless. He twisted the wheel, missed by inches. Tires screamed against asphalt. His heart matched pitch.
The car steadied. Sort of. His breath came in shallow gasps. Sweat soaked through his collar, clinging to his spine. But he kept driving.
Faster now. Determined. Even if the thing inside him wasn’t finished. Even if it had just started pulling.
He pulled into the driveway without thinking, headlights cutting across his empty front porch like interrogation beams before fading out.
Engine off. Lights dead.
Stillness.
Rain ticked against the windshield—soft, patient, like an echo returning from someplace it wasn’t supposed to go. He stayed in the car. Gripping the wheel. Breath shallow. Eyes forward.
The silence leaned closer, thick as smoke, waiting to see if he’d step forward or fold inward. He clenched the wheel tighter, trying to anchor himself to the now. But something in the noise stirred. Something half-remembered. Something too familiar.
And then ... the car vanished. Not in metal. Not in motion. But in meaning.
The interior peeled away, stripped by memory—not with finesse, but with clawed hands. Dashboard collapsed into stone. Sunroof sealed to ceiling. The world folded, not outward, but inward.
He was in his room again. Inside him.
No doors. No exits. Just walls—breathing like lungs, pulsing with cracks that glowed faintly under pressure. There was no light, except for the kind that flickers when rage scrapes against betrayal. The air smelled like old smoke and broken promises. And in the corner, seated like rot with posture, the darkness stretched awake.
“You’re back,” it murmured, voice slick as oil, grinning with teeth too white, too clean. “You know what she did. Lied with the breath she swore was yours.” Its shadowed hand swept across the cracked stone, each fissure twitching like a pulse. “A souvenir,” it said. “One for every time you pretended not to hear the lie.”
Then it shifted. Leaned in close enough for the breath to smell like burned promises. “And your boss?” it hissed, the grin widening to reveal teeth meant for slicing. “Just another coward in a tie. Letting it rot. Pretending not to smell the decay.”
A pause—thick, deliberate.
“But you left him there, didn’t you? Choked on his own regrets while the leather soaked up his final breath.”
The crack along the far wall pulsed once—red and wet. A new fracture. A fresh truth.
He didn’t respond to the voice. Didn’t flinch. But somewhere beneath his pulse, something cracked.
He sat at the threshold again. Older now—but something inside still hadn't caught up. The walls were familiar. The cold was familiar. Even the silence, thick and slow, carried the scent of a moment he thought he'd buried.
The mind clawed for clarity, scraping at half-lit thoughts, dim from the inside out. This wasn’t the first time he’d stood here—between silence and surrender. The last time, he’d made a choice that reshaped everything.
He had chosen wisely.
But this time felt different. This time, the shadows weren’t just watching. They were waiting to be fed.
It leaned in, close enough to feel—heat without breath, a presence without shape. Its words came slick, almost sweet, like honey stirred with ash. “So I say it’s time,” it whispered. “Time she takes her medicine. Not the kind that heals. The kind that scalds the truth out—burns through skin and muscle alike.”
The walls shuddered, furious with recollection. Cracks danced like veins, glowing red, twitching. And in the center of the storm, the man trembled. Not from fear. From choice. Heavy, circling. Like a loaded hawk above dying prey—eyes locked, claws readied.
From somewhere above, light began pressing its way in—thin, brittle, and trying to create its own existence. Not a burst. No warmth. Just a cracked thread bleeding through stone, like daylight forced through broken glass. It touched the ceiling and hesitated, flickering as if afraid to go further.
The walls winced. The dark recoiled. But only for a breath.
“You can hate her,” it said—not pleading, not timid. Brutality laid bare in the wreckage. “But the children ... they don’t deserve what you carry.”
Rain ticked against the windshield—soft, patient, like an echo returning from someplace it wasn’t supposed to go. He stayed in the car. Gripping the wheel. Breath shallow. Eyes forward.
The silence leaned closer, thick as smoke, waiting to see if he’d step forward or fold inward. He clenched the wheel tighter, trying to anchor himself to the now. But something in the noise stirred. Something half-remembered. Something too familiar.
And then ... the car vanished. Not in metal. Not in motion. But in meaning.
The interior peeled away, stripped by memory—not with finesse, but with clawed hands. Dashboard collapsed into stone. Sunroof sealed to ceiling. The world folded, not outward, but inward.
He was in his room again. Inside him.
No doors. No exits. Just walls—breathing like lungs, pulsing with cracks that glowed faintly under pressure. There was no light, except for the kind that flickers when rage scrapes against betrayal. The air smelled like old smoke and broken promises. And in the corner, seated like rot with posture, the darkness stretched awake.
“You’re back,” it murmured, voice slick as oil, grinning with teeth too white, too clean. “You know what she did. Lied with the breath she swore was yours.” Its shadowed hand swept across the cracked stone, each fissure twitching like a pulse. “A souvenir,” it said. “One for every time you pretended not to hear the lie.”
Then it shifted. Leaned in close enough for the breath to smell like burned promises. “And your boss?” it hissed, the grin widening to reveal teeth meant for slicing. “Just another coward in a tie. Letting it rot. Pretending not to smell the decay.”
A pause—thick, deliberate.
“But you left him there, didn’t you? Choked on his own regrets while the leather soaked up his final breath.”
The crack along the far wall pulsed once—red and wet. A new fracture. A fresh truth.
He didn’t respond to the voice. Didn’t flinch. But somewhere beneath his pulse, something cracked.
He sat at the threshold again. Older now—but something inside still hadn't caught up. The walls were familiar. The cold was familiar. Even the silence, thick and slow, carried the scent of a moment he thought he'd buried.
The mind clawed for clarity, scraping at half-lit thoughts, dim from the inside out. This wasn’t the first time he’d stood here—between silence and surrender. The last time, he’d made a choice that reshaped everything.
He had chosen wisely.
But this time felt different. This time, the shadows weren’t just watching. They were waiting to be fed.
It leaned in, close enough to feel—heat without breath, a presence without shape. Its words came slick, almost sweet, like honey stirred with ash. “So I say it’s time,” it whispered. “Time she takes her medicine. Not the kind that heals. The kind that scalds the truth out—burns through skin and muscle alike.”
The walls shuddered, furious with recollection. Cracks danced like veins, glowing red, twitching. And in the center of the storm, the man trembled. Not from fear. From choice. Heavy, circling. Like a loaded hawk above dying prey—eyes locked, claws readied.
From somewhere above, light began pressing its way in—thin, brittle, and trying to create its own existence. Not a burst. No warmth. Just a cracked thread bleeding through stone, like daylight forced through broken glass. It touched the ceiling and hesitated, flickering as if afraid to go further.
The walls winced. The dark recoiled. But only for a breath.
“You can hate her,” it said—not pleading, not timid. Brutality laid bare in the wreckage. “But the children ... they don’t deserve what you carry.”
The voice—if it was a voice—sounded more like an echo now. A half-buried scream muffled by time, flung into his head like a nail wrapped in cloth.
The man didn’t move, but something under his ribs twisted. He looked up, eyes searching for that frail shard of light clawing through the ceiling. It trembled there—barely alive, flickering like a dying nerve.
And then the scream broke loose: full-throated, from somewhere deep—where the damage hadn’t healed, only hardened. “It’s not fair!” he howled, voice ragged, lungs straining against the weight of it all. “I did everything. I was everything I was supposed to be!” His voice cracked, tearing through the room like glass splitting under heat. “This—this isn’t right!”
He slammed both fists into the stone beneath him, the stone allowing him to create cracks where his hands hit, teeth gritted, breath burning. “I hate her! I hate what she did. What she broke. The lies. The hurt. Our family—she shredded it into pieces we were never meant to pick up.”
His eyes were wide, lost, bloodshot with fury.
“And the children ...” His words stumbled now, cracking under sorrow. “They don’t deserve what she carried. They don’t deserve her poison.”
The silence didn’t flinch. The darkness leaned in—pleased. But the light? It flickered again. Like it still had something left to say.
The light pulsed once—stronger this time. Not enough to fill the room, but enough to press back against the decomposition. A glimmer of defiance, bleeding through the cracks like truth forced through a clenched jaw.
“You’ve already left a man to die,” it said, sharper now. “And you’ve destroyed his fam—”
“Fuck his family!” the man roared, voice fusing with the shadow’s growl, both erupting in violent chorus. “He didn’t care about them when he decided to destroy mine!”
The echo slammed against the walls, carving fresh wounds into stone. The light recoiled, flickering under the weight of fury.
The man stood alone in the tremble—breath ragged, face twisted, rage still burning, but no longer shared.
The room darkened—not dimmed, not softened. It clenched. Fractures pulsed red along the walls, fevered with pressure, as if the stone itself wanted to scream. And from the corner—where rot had learned to speak—it rose again. Not creeping. Not coaxing. But declaring.
“This isn’t vengeance,” it hissed, voice serrated with purpose. “This is respect. Loyalty. Love. Commitment. All destroyed.”
Each word carved deep—nails to the spine.
“She spat on every promise the moment she made her fucking choice. Those vows? They died with her honesty. Now it’s your turn. You gave everything—your name, your spine, your soul—and still she gutted it.”
The walls tightened. The air thickened.
The crackling silence that followed felt almost sacred—a final breath before the drop.
“You’ve already made one man pay,” it growled. “Now you finish it. Because it’s time...”
The pressure surged.
“...to get with the fucking program already.”
In a blink, he was back in the car. No breath. No warning. Just rage—coiled, dominant, screaming without sound. The revolver sat in his hand, warm as flesh, pulsing with purpose. His grip was tight, too tight, bones grinding against steel.
The fury wasn’t external anymore. It had teeth now. It pulled him—no footsteps, no hesitation. He tore out of the car. Across the driveway. Up the steps, through the door—a storm stitched in motion. Every movement cracked the silence. Every breath came sharp, a warning with teeth.
Inside, the house was quiet. Too quiet. And at the end of it all, she sat in the dining room—alone. The table between them. Her eyes were wide, lip trembling, hands folded like prayer without faith. Waiting. Worried. Not yet pleading. But she knew something was wrong. She could feel it. Smell it. See it—in the way he didn’t blink when he entered the room.
And still ... she stayed seated.
She started talking the moment he stepped into the room, her voice thin, broken, splintering between sobs.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen,” she stammered, eyes already wet. “It started at the company picnic ... I didn’t know what I was doing—he was just—he was there and I—”
She reached for words like someone grasping at air during a fall. Her lip quivered, fingers clutching the edge of the table, shoulders hunched like she expected the house itself to forgive her.
“I was lost,” she sobbed. “You were working so much, and I ... I didn’t mean for any of this to—”
“Where are the children?” His voice was flat, stripped of warmth.
She hesitated. “With your father. Just for the weekend.”
The pause lingered like smoke.
He reached under his coat and drew the revolver—not fast, not slow. Just certain.
He set it on the table. The metal didn’t make a sound, but the room flinched. Her voice caught instantly—dead in the throat, choked by the quiet violence of that gesture. Her eyes locked on the gun, wide and wild, refusing to lift.
She hesitated. “With your father. Just for the weekend.”
The pause lingered like smoke.
He reached under his coat and drew the revolver—not fast, not slow. Just certain.
He set it on the table. The metal didn’t make a sound, but the room flinched. Her voice caught instantly—dead in the throat, choked by the quiet violence of that gesture. Her eyes locked on the gun, wide and wild, refusing to lift.
Now, he leaned in—just slightly. Close enough for his words to land like a blade placed with intent, not threat. “Finish your fucking story.”
Her gaze slid toward the weapon. Not far. Just enough to confirm it still hung between them like a verdict waiting for breath. Then back to his eyes. Unblinking. Unmoved. Watching her with a stillness that felt oppressive—not angry, not pleading, just final.
The kind of stillness that doesn’t cast judgment—just waits for it to unfold.
And in that instant, the silence clicked. She saw it. Not in speech, not in confirmation—just in the way truth poured off him like heat from a funeral flame
“You ... you did it,” she whispered, voice splintering like glass underfoot. “Oh my God—you killed him...”
He didn’t move. Didn’t confirm. Only stared.
The air between them pulsed—thick with tension, the kind that smells like old steel and sweat.
She started crying again, but this time it wasn’t guilt. It was fear. Raw. Rising.
The gun didn’t twitch. It didn’t need to. It had already spoken.
Her arms folded inward across her chest in a self-embrace—tight, defensive, like instinct reaching for protection against something. Her gaze darted between the revolver and the man who hadn’t blinked since walking in the dining room.
“I didn’t,” she rasped. “I didn’t mean for him to mean anything, it was just—attention. He listened to me and you were—”
She stopped herself. Too late.
The man tilted his head slightly—
Her words didn’t come fast enough—didn’t come at all. Not when his voice sliced through the air like a blade dulled by blood, sharp enough to hurt but jagged with history.
“Oh no,” he said, leaning back just slightly, the wicked glint in his eye now fully awake. “Please ... go on.”
He wore a smile that wasn’t comforting or cruel. It was worse. It was hollow—like something had gone missing from inside him and she hadn’t noticed until now.
“Tell me,” he said, louder now, his voice digging into the wood of the table. “How the man who had me grinding hours, skipping dinners, missing birthdays—so we could maybe climb out of the hole and breathe—found his way inside my wife.”
She inhaled sharply, like it might help her hide behind silence.
He pressed harder, the words tumbling out with a rhythm that felt practiced, like rage sharpening itself in quiet for years.
“Explain that math to me. Tell me how my loyalty turned into your invitation. Tell me how he became your comfort when I was breaking my back trying to make sure our kids didn’t sleep hungry.”
Her hands curled tighter around her own arms. Eyes wet. Mouth open—but no sound.
His face twitched—just once. It looked almost like a laugh, except there was nothing left inside him to make it whole.
The revolver stayed on the table. Waiting. Listening.
The room felt unsafe, like air stripped of oxygen but still pretending to be breathable. Each second hung like a loaded breath.
And he hadn’t even blinked yet.
He fractured. He stood—not fast, not slow, just with finality.
The revolver came with him, drawn in the same breath—one motion, fluid and sharp, like judgment disguised as instinct.
It rose and locked on her face. No tremble. No words. Just intention wrapped in steel.
The world snapped inward—not gradually, but with violent precision.
Reality folded like canvas soaked in gasoline and lit from within. He didn’t fall—he was taken, dragged by something, heavy and merciless.
Back into the room.
But it wasn’t the same.
The walls had collapsed further into themselves, no longer holding shape but sagging like bruised lungs struggling to breathe. They burned with molten threads, twitching against unseen pressure. Cracks stretched across the stone like scars carved into flesh, glowing faintly—sickly light with no warmth.
The air reeked: scorched paper, old sweat, something decaying beneath it all.
The revolver still burned in his hand. But in this place, it wasn’t a weapon—it was a symbol. A ritual. A promise waiting to be fulfilled.
And from the corner, the dark part of him stepped forward—taller, heavier, worn like armor stitched from betrayal. It wore his face, but the eyes weren’t his.
“You hold the means,” it said, voice a layered echo of gravel and hatred. “Now make the decision. End this.”
The room pressed inward. The cracks flared red. The revolver pulsed in his hand like a living thing— warm, rhythmic, ready. The air smelled of scorched flesh.
His finger twitched. Just once.
Then the light came.
First—barely a whisper. A thread of gold bleeding through the ceiling’s decay. Soft. Insistent. Uninvited.
Just presence.
The dark recoiled slightly, like a predator meeting fire. Its face twisted. Its voice growled. “No,” it spat. “This place is sealed. You have nothing here.”
But the light grew.
It didn’t ask permission. It split through a fracture in the wall, crawling across floorboards. It crackled against the revolver, humming like truth denied too long.
Then it screamed.
“You know better.” A voice with no mouth—just conviction. Sharp as broken glass. Heavy as guilt.
“You know this is not the answer.”
The light surged—overpowering everything overhead, cutting through the dark like a chisel through soft wood. Precise. Not gentle. Just enough force to split the room open, like truth grinding through rusted gears—slow, violent, designed to rupture.
It spilled across the walls in crooked angles, gold light jagged and flickering—neither divine nor clean. Each shard twisted downward, slow and surgical.
Two faces hung in the haze. Not specters. Not memories. His children.
Still. Silent. And staring.
Their eyes didn’t beg. They measured.
Slowly, he turned the barrel from her—no rush, no salvation—until it aimed back at him.
The revolver dipped.
His bones remembered them. Regret pulsed from wrist to shoulder like fiber optics under skin. His grip faltered. Just slightly.
The shot cracked.
Sharp. Flat. Final.
Smoke punched the air. No flare. Just force.
Jaw clenched.
Eyes flickered—not away from the darkness, but toward the rupture overhead. Where light bled down like the last breath of something righteous.
“You still breathe!” the light roared. “That moment of clarity inside you—don’t let it drown! Don’t you dare turn your pain into permanence!”
The dark snarled louder, stepping close. It began to blur, glitch, flicker. Its voice now split—echoing with desperation. “He was mine. He chose. Don’t let the light make you weak.”
But the room itself responded. The veins in the floor pulsed gold now—slow, then faster. The walls shuddered. Even the revolver, once burning, dimmed in his hand.
And the man—the one with rage in his chest and hatred carved into his heart—didn’t move. Just stared at the space between forces. He was breathing. Shallow. Shaky. Real.
The blood along his temple ran slow, thick, pooling in the corner of his eye like crimson paint that refused to dry.
Outside, his body sprawled—limp against the hardwood. In his mind, he was just as defeated. The room returned to its plain white neutrality. But it was broken. In complete ruins. But not gone.
The walls, trembling like they could collapse at any moment, blinked with fading pulses of red. The veins cracked deeper now—ulcers beneath the skin of his psyche. The revolver hovered near his hand in this space, shimmering faintly. No longer a beacon. Just a reminder.
And from the far side of the room, the dark stepped forward. Not as a shape this time—as a reflection.
Bleeding from every pore with disappointment.
Its voice came low and jagged, wearing mock sympathy like barbed wire. “Look at you.” It gestured at him without moving. “Not even strong enough to commit. You aimed. You flinched. You spilled blood and still failed to finish.”
The man flinched. Jaw twitching.
“You chose failure,” the dark hissed. “Not vengeance. Not courage. You chose to fall short.” It stepped closer, rising taller, teeth like shattered glass. “Your children will grow up knowing their father nearly erased himself ... not for love, not for justice—but for weakness.”
And then—the light came. Not soft. It burst like gunfire through broken windows. White-hot. Accusatory. Demanding. “Enough!” it roared. A voice like judgment carved into infinity. “You speak like he actually made a choice—but what he made wasn’t. It was abandonment. The absence of decision. Cowardice disguised as consequence.”
The man gasped in the real world. Chest heaving. Eyes fluttering. Alive.
Back in the room, the light surged forward, pushing shadow back.
“You didn’t end. That means something. You stopped yourself. Even if it took something unseen to pull your hand—you hesitated. And that hesitation is your thread.”
The revolver on the floor flickered—dim now, no longer glowing.
“You’re not finished,” the light whispered, quieter now. “Not forgiven. Not rebuilt. But still here.”
The room began to shift—cracks sealed slowly, not fully. The shadow growled, but shrank. And the man laid in the center—blood staining his memory, breath rattling like dried leaves.
Not whole. Not healed.
But alive.
The blood had slowed.
He could almost feel the floor beneath his body again—something hard, something cold—but distant, like it existed a few seconds ahead of his pulse. And through the fractured silence, he heard it.
Her voice. Not clearly. Just the echo of it, rattling through the bruised corridors of his mind like distant thunder over water.
“...yes, there’s blood ... my husband—he shot himself, please hurry...”
Her panic layered itself through the room in fragments. A siren hidden in breath. And still, he lay there— half-dragged inward, breath clawing at his lungs, vision swimming between memory and fantasy.
The light still hovered. Dimmer now. But present.
He turned to it slowly. Words rasped from a throat lined with regret. “What now?” he asked, broken and quiet. “What’s going to happen?”
The light leaned in, no body, no warmth. “You must face the consequences of your choice,” it said, voice stripped of comfort. “You have a long, hard road in front of you.”
Its glow began to fade, peeling itself back like a tide retreating from wreckage.
The dark lingered a few seconds longer. It watched. Tilted its head. Then let loose a laugh—low, guttural, like rust grinding against bone. “I’ll be seeing you again, boy,” it whispered as it dissolved— not gone, just waiting.
The room didn’t vanish. It receded. Bent itself around his mind like scar tissue.
And in the outside world—he breathed. Eyes still closed. Blood still warm.
The sirens weren’t distant anymore.
Blue and red carved themselves into the night like surgical scars—flashing across shattered glass, the walls trembling under sound and shame.
He lay still on the stretcher. Bandages pressed tight against his temple, blood soaking through, refusing to clot. The paramedics moved without speaking—trained hands, indifferent eyes—but he felt every jolt, every bump of the wheels like echoes of consequences rattling down his spine.
His pupils barely responded to the light. But his breathing held. Each inhale ragged. Each exhale thin.
Alive.
The front door hung wide open now, crooked on its hinges. A home exposed. A wound torn wide. The woman stood just outside, her arms wrapped around herself as though grief could be folded and kept. One officer scribbled into a notebook, another spoke softly.
“Ma’am ... you’re safe now. We need details.”
She nodded, but her eyes never left the stretcher. Never left him.
He was being swallowed by the ambulance now, metal doors framing his stillness like a coffin that hadn’t been earned. One of the paramedics paused—staring a second longer than necessary. “He’s lucky,” he muttered. “Real damn lucky.”
But luck wasn’t the word.
As the ambulance pulled away, the woman broke—knees buckling just enough to crack the surface.
Another officer reached for her, steadied her.
Inside the ambulance, the man’s hand twitched. Once. Then again. The street remained quiet. Just flashing lights fading into the dark, taking what remained of a man who broke, bled, but didn't die.
Not yet.
The man tilted his head slightly—
Her words didn’t come fast enough—didn’t come at all. Not when his voice sliced through the air like a blade dulled by blood, sharp enough to hurt but jagged with history.
“Oh no,” he said, leaning back just slightly, the wicked glint in his eye now fully awake. “Please ... go on.”
He wore a smile that wasn’t comforting or cruel. It was worse. It was hollow—like something had gone missing from inside him and she hadn’t noticed until now.
“Tell me,” he said, louder now, his voice digging into the wood of the table. “How the man who had me grinding hours, skipping dinners, missing birthdays—so we could maybe climb out of the hole and breathe—found his way inside my wife.”
She inhaled sharply, like it might help her hide behind silence.
He pressed harder, the words tumbling out with a rhythm that felt practiced, like rage sharpening itself in quiet for years.
“Explain that math to me. Tell me how my loyalty turned into your invitation. Tell me how he became your comfort when I was breaking my back trying to make sure our kids didn’t sleep hungry.”
Her hands curled tighter around her own arms. Eyes wet. Mouth open—but no sound.
His face twitched—just once. It looked almost like a laugh, except there was nothing left inside him to make it whole.
The revolver stayed on the table. Waiting. Listening.
The room felt unsafe, like air stripped of oxygen but still pretending to be breathable. Each second hung like a loaded breath.
And he hadn’t even blinked yet.
He fractured. He stood—not fast, not slow, just with finality.
The revolver came with him, drawn in the same breath—one motion, fluid and sharp, like judgment disguised as instinct.
It rose and locked on her face. No tremble. No words. Just intention wrapped in steel.
The world snapped inward—not gradually, but with violent precision.
Reality folded like canvas soaked in gasoline and lit from within. He didn’t fall—he was taken, dragged by something, heavy and merciless.
Back into the room.
But it wasn’t the same.
The walls had collapsed further into themselves, no longer holding shape but sagging like bruised lungs struggling to breathe. They burned with molten threads, twitching against unseen pressure. Cracks stretched across the stone like scars carved into flesh, glowing faintly—sickly light with no warmth.
The air reeked: scorched paper, old sweat, something decaying beneath it all.
The revolver still burned in his hand. But in this place, it wasn’t a weapon—it was a symbol. A ritual. A promise waiting to be fulfilled.
And from the corner, the dark part of him stepped forward—taller, heavier, worn like armor stitched from betrayal. It wore his face, but the eyes weren’t his.
“You hold the means,” it said, voice a layered echo of gravel and hatred. “Now make the decision. End this.”
The room pressed inward. The cracks flared red. The revolver pulsed in his hand like a living thing— warm, rhythmic, ready. The air smelled of scorched flesh.
His finger twitched. Just once.
Then the light came.
First—barely a whisper. A thread of gold bleeding through the ceiling’s decay. Soft. Insistent. Uninvited.
Just presence.
The dark recoiled slightly, like a predator meeting fire. Its face twisted. Its voice growled. “No,” it spat. “This place is sealed. You have nothing here.”
But the light grew.
It didn’t ask permission. It split through a fracture in the wall, crawling across floorboards. It crackled against the revolver, humming like truth denied too long.
Then it screamed.
“You know better.” A voice with no mouth—just conviction. Sharp as broken glass. Heavy as guilt.
“You know this is not the answer.”
The light surged—overpowering everything overhead, cutting through the dark like a chisel through soft wood. Precise. Not gentle. Just enough force to split the room open, like truth grinding through rusted gears—slow, violent, designed to rupture.
It spilled across the walls in crooked angles, gold light jagged and flickering—neither divine nor clean. Each shard twisted downward, slow and surgical.
Two faces hung in the haze. Not specters. Not memories. His children.
Still. Silent. And staring.
Their eyes didn’t beg. They measured.
Slowly, he turned the barrel from her—no rush, no salvation—until it aimed back at him.
The revolver dipped.
His bones remembered them. Regret pulsed from wrist to shoulder like fiber optics under skin. His grip faltered. Just slightly.
The shot cracked.
Sharp. Flat. Final.
Smoke punched the air. No flare. Just force.
Jaw clenched.
Eyes flickered—not away from the darkness, but toward the rupture overhead. Where light bled down like the last breath of something righteous.
“You still breathe!” the light roared. “That moment of clarity inside you—don’t let it drown! Don’t you dare turn your pain into permanence!”
The dark snarled louder, stepping close. It began to blur, glitch, flicker. Its voice now split—echoing with desperation. “He was mine. He chose. Don’t let the light make you weak.”
But the room itself responded. The veins in the floor pulsed gold now—slow, then faster. The walls shuddered. Even the revolver, once burning, dimmed in his hand.
And the man—the one with rage in his chest and hatred carved into his heart—didn’t move. Just stared at the space between forces. He was breathing. Shallow. Shaky. Real.
The blood along his temple ran slow, thick, pooling in the corner of his eye like crimson paint that refused to dry.
Outside, his body sprawled—limp against the hardwood. In his mind, he was just as defeated. The room returned to its plain white neutrality. But it was broken. In complete ruins. But not gone.
The walls, trembling like they could collapse at any moment, blinked with fading pulses of red. The veins cracked deeper now—ulcers beneath the skin of his psyche. The revolver hovered near his hand in this space, shimmering faintly. No longer a beacon. Just a reminder.
And from the far side of the room, the dark stepped forward. Not as a shape this time—as a reflection.
Bleeding from every pore with disappointment.
Its voice came low and jagged, wearing mock sympathy like barbed wire. “Look at you.” It gestured at him without moving. “Not even strong enough to commit. You aimed. You flinched. You spilled blood and still failed to finish.”
The man flinched. Jaw twitching.
“You chose failure,” the dark hissed. “Not vengeance. Not courage. You chose to fall short.” It stepped closer, rising taller, teeth like shattered glass. “Your children will grow up knowing their father nearly erased himself ... not for love, not for justice—but for weakness.”
And then—the light came. Not soft. It burst like gunfire through broken windows. White-hot. Accusatory. Demanding. “Enough!” it roared. A voice like judgment carved into infinity. “You speak like he actually made a choice—but what he made wasn’t. It was abandonment. The absence of decision. Cowardice disguised as consequence.”
The man gasped in the real world. Chest heaving. Eyes fluttering. Alive.
Back in the room, the light surged forward, pushing shadow back.
“You didn’t end. That means something. You stopped yourself. Even if it took something unseen to pull your hand—you hesitated. And that hesitation is your thread.”
The revolver on the floor flickered—dim now, no longer glowing.
“You’re not finished,” the light whispered, quieter now. “Not forgiven. Not rebuilt. But still here.”
The room began to shift—cracks sealed slowly, not fully. The shadow growled, but shrank. And the man laid in the center—blood staining his memory, breath rattling like dried leaves.
Not whole. Not healed.
But alive.
The blood had slowed.
He could almost feel the floor beneath his body again—something hard, something cold—but distant, like it existed a few seconds ahead of his pulse. And through the fractured silence, he heard it.
Her voice. Not clearly. Just the echo of it, rattling through the bruised corridors of his mind like distant thunder over water.
“...yes, there’s blood ... my husband—he shot himself, please hurry...”
Her panic layered itself through the room in fragments. A siren hidden in breath. And still, he lay there— half-dragged inward, breath clawing at his lungs, vision swimming between memory and fantasy.
The light still hovered. Dimmer now. But present.
He turned to it slowly. Words rasped from a throat lined with regret. “What now?” he asked, broken and quiet. “What’s going to happen?”
The light leaned in, no body, no warmth. “You must face the consequences of your choice,” it said, voice stripped of comfort. “You have a long, hard road in front of you.”
Its glow began to fade, peeling itself back like a tide retreating from wreckage.
The dark lingered a few seconds longer. It watched. Tilted its head. Then let loose a laugh—low, guttural, like rust grinding against bone. “I’ll be seeing you again, boy,” it whispered as it dissolved— not gone, just waiting.
The room didn’t vanish. It receded. Bent itself around his mind like scar tissue.
And in the outside world—he breathed. Eyes still closed. Blood still warm.
The sirens weren’t distant anymore.
Blue and red carved themselves into the night like surgical scars—flashing across shattered glass, the walls trembling under sound and shame.
He lay still on the stretcher. Bandages pressed tight against his temple, blood soaking through, refusing to clot. The paramedics moved without speaking—trained hands, indifferent eyes—but he felt every jolt, every bump of the wheels like echoes of consequences rattling down his spine.
His pupils barely responded to the light. But his breathing held. Each inhale ragged. Each exhale thin.
Alive.
The front door hung wide open now, crooked on its hinges. A home exposed. A wound torn wide. The woman stood just outside, her arms wrapped around herself as though grief could be folded and kept. One officer scribbled into a notebook, another spoke softly.
“Ma’am ... you’re safe now. We need details.”
She nodded, but her eyes never left the stretcher. Never left him.
He was being swallowed by the ambulance now, metal doors framing his stillness like a coffin that hadn’t been earned. One of the paramedics paused—staring a second longer than necessary. “He’s lucky,” he muttered. “Real damn lucky.”
But luck wasn’t the word.
As the ambulance pulled away, the woman broke—knees buckling just enough to crack the surface.
Another officer reached for her, steadied her.
Inside the ambulance, the man’s hand twitched. Once. Then again. The street remained quiet. Just flashing lights fading into the dark, taking what remained of a man who broke, bled, but didn't die.
Not yet.
* * *
Zachory “Mick” McAllister is a writer, electrical engineer, and U.S. Navy veteran, which means he knows his way around wires, waves, and the occasional existential crisis. Born in Reno, Nevada, he spent his formative years consuming DC Comics, Stephen King, and Orson Scott Card, unknowingly training for his future career in storytelling (and possibly surviving post-apocalyptic scenarios).
After navigating the high seas with the Navy, Mick transitioned into electrical engineering—because what better way to balance the chaos of creative writing than with the soothing logic of circuits? Though writing was an on-again, off-again endeavor, it always lingered in the background like an overenthusiastic sidekick waiting for its big moment. His work has appeared at The Dope Fiend Daily and Subject And Verb Agreement Press literary e-zines.
Follow Zach @ https://www.instagram.com/mcallisterzach547/
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