Chapter 2 - The Sound of SilenceThe interior of the house felt wrong.
When I left ten months ago, this place had a pulse. The air smelled like brewed coffee, worn paperbacks, and the faint scent of lavender that my mother loved. Now, the living room was aggressively sterile. The family photos on the mantelpiece—decades of memories capturing my childhood, my graduation, our wedding day—were gone. Replaced by generic, mass-produced canvas prints of abstract grey waves.
“Where are the photos?” I asked, turning sharply to face Evelyn, who had trailed closely behind me.
She blinked, momentarily thrown off by the abrupt change of subject. “Oh… those? They were gathering dust, honey. I’m redecorating. You know how much I love a modern, minimalist aesthetic.”
Minimalist. Right. Or erased.
Without waiting for her permission, I abandoned my boots in the hallway and took the stairs two at a time. My heart hammered against my ribs—not from fear, but from a cold, simmering fury that threatened to boil over.
“Mark, wait! Don’t go up there like that! You’ll startle her!” Evelyn’s footsteps scrambled on the hardwood behind me, her voice pitching up in frantic urgency. “She’s in the middle of a bad episode. She doesn’t even know what day it is!”
I ignored her, reaching the landing and striding straight toward my mother’s bedroom at the end of the hall. The door was closed. Not just shut, but secured. I reached for the brass knob and turned it, but it held firm.
Locked.
May you like
From the inside. Or the outside.
“Open the door, Evelyn,” I commanded, turning my head to look back at her. She had reached the top of the stairs, breathing heavily, her face flushed not from exertion, but from sheer, unadulterated terror.
