The Night He Finally Came Home

The marble floor felt colder than Lily remembered, not because the house had changed, but because her body no longer had the strength to fight it, and as she dragged herself forward inch by inch, her small hands trembling beneath her weight, she could feel the sharp, constant ache in her leg spreading upward like a slow fire that refused to fade.

Her fingers curled tightly into the fabric of her little brother’s shirt as she pulled him along beside her, careful not to let his head hit the floor, even though every movement sent a wave of pain through her body that made her vision blur and her breathing uneven.

Three days.

That was how long they had been inside the closet, where the air had grown thick and stale, where the darkness had swallowed time until it felt like morning and night no longer existed, and where the silence had only been broken by Tommy’s weak cries that had slowly faded into soft, uneven breaths.

Lily had tried to stay awake for him, because she knew that if she closed her eyes for too long, she might not wake up in time to help him, and although her own body had begged for rest, she had whispered stories, hummed songs, and pressed her cheek against his just to remind him that he wasn’t alone.