The front door creaked louder than it should've, but Kieran didn't flinch. He stepped inside, shoulders tucked in, shoes squeaking faintly against the tile floor. The house was dim—curtains half-drawn, a fuzzy CRT television murmuring in the background with static between shows.
He shut the door quietly, then waited. Listening.
His father's voice echoed from the living room. "You're late."
Kieran didn't answer. He slipped past the doorway, not making eye contact. His father was slouched on the couch in a sweat-stained tank top, nursing a beer. Eyes half-lidded, flicking between the TV and Kieran like a predator too tired to chase—but willing to bite.
"Look at me when I'm talking."
Kieran froze. Turned his head slightly. Not all the way.
"What, are you too good to speak now?"
A pause.
"No, sir."
A cold silence stretched before the man grunted and turned back to the TV. Kieran moved quickly—quietly—toward the hallway.
His mother was in the kitchen. Her back to him. Cigarette smoke curled toward the ceiling fan, which ticked with every slow rotation. She didn't say a word as he passed. Didn't even glance his way.
He climbed the stairs, each one carefully. His room was at the end of the hall, across from his older sister's—door closed, music muffled inside. Britney Spears or something like it. His little sister sat on the floor outside her room, dressing a doll in silence.
She looked up at him briefly. Blank stare. Then back to the doll.
Kieran said nothing.
In his room, the air was stale. A mattress on the floor. Thin blanket. A worn bookshelf filled with secondhand paperbacks, spines cracked, corners folded. No posters. Just peeling wallpaper and a small desk with a busted reading lamp.
He closed the door gently and locked it. Then leaned against it and let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
Only here did the tension slip from his shoulders. Only here did he feel almost safe.
He sat at his desk, pulled out a notebook, and flipped to a blank page. The pencil felt heavy in his hand.
He started to draw. Nothing in particular—just lines, shapes, and shading shadows. Letting the noise of the house blur behind the paper walls he built in his head.
An hour later.
The TV murmured in the living room—something fuzzy and static, maybe the tail end of a local news segment. Faint music crackled from an old stereo nearby: Evanescence, maybe Linkin Park. The kind of sound that felt heavy in the air, even when turned low.
Kieran sat at the dinner table, knees drawn close together. His plate was full—meatloaf, canned peas, mashed potatoes—but his appetite wasn't. He kept his eyes down.
Across from him, his older sister, Ava, stabbed her food with quiet aggression. She didn't speak. She never really did unless she had to.
To his left, Mira, the youngest, hummed softly under her breath, tapping her spoon on the table like it was a drum. She lived in her own world, barely noticing the tension.
And at the head of the table—their father.
"You gonna eat or stare at it like a damn idiot?" The man grunted, his voice like gravel and spit.
Kieran flinched, lifting his fork with shaking fingers. "Yes, sir."
"Don't mumble."
"Yes, sir."
Their mother sat beside him, smoking indoors again. She tapped ash into a cracked ceramic tray and didn't look up once. She hadn't looked any of them in the eye since last year. Not really.
Ava scraped her plate. Mira kept drumming. Kieran forced down one bite, then another.
He chewed mechanically. Tasteless. Heavy. Every sound felt louder than it was—the clink of cutlery, the hiss of the cigarette, the creak of the fan overhead.
At one point, their father slammed his hand down—hard—just to make Mira stop tapping. She did.
Nobody spoke after that.
After everyone finished, Kieran rushed upstairs slowly.
Kieran sat cross-legged on the carpet beside his twin-size mattress. A stack of wrinkled school papers sat in his lap—math problems and spelling drills from earlier. He didn't care much for them, but he worked through them anyway, his pencil moving in tight, careful loops.
The walls of his room were thin. He could hear Ava's music through the drywall—muted screams and electric guitar solos. Downstairs, the muffled argument of his parents rose and fell, like waves crashing behind a closed door.
On his desk, an old flip phone buzzed once. No messages. Just a low battery warning.
Kieran crawled into bed without brushing his teeth. There was no point. The house was quiet now, but that didn't mean safe. Quiet only meant waiting.
He lay there under thin covers, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. The dark was complete—no nightlight, no window glow. Just black.
He thought about school. About the new kid. About Roy.
He thought about the prana writing, about the way Roy moved and talked like he wasn't real.
He thought about how fake everyone else was, how no one looked at him, and how he barely remembered what his mother's laugh sounded like anymore.
And then he thought about what Roy had said.
"I never do. Just black. Every night."
Kieran swallowed, curling tighter under his blanket.
He closed his eyes.
Nothing came.
Just black.