Chapter 129: You Are Surrounded
The tears those traitors tried to return, but he forced them back with almost physical violence. Not anymore. Never again. His face shut like a slammed door, his features hardened under the influence of an icy rage that seeped into his veins, gradually replacing his blood with something denser, darker. With each step, that sensation grew, carving a dizzying abyss deep within his soul.
Time an illusion now lost all meaning. Hours passed, fluid and elusive. The streetlights drifted by like slumbering sentinels, the neighborhoods changed their appearance under his indifferent steps, and the few night wanderers instinctively moved out of his way, as if even in their drunkenness, they perceived the aura of danger emanating from him. The sky, once a deep blue, darkened into an ocean of ink where pale stars swam, indifferent to the suffering of men.
Finally, like an apparition emerging from the void, the building where he lived materialized before him. An ordinary structure in a world that had become alien, its illuminated windows seemed like curious eyes peering into the cold night.
Isaac halted at the base of the stairs, his heavy gaze lifting toward the upper floors. His breath that stubborn reminder that he was still alive formed an ephemeral cloud in the freezing air, a translucent specter that vanished as quickly as it appeared. His legs, suddenly heavy as if the weight of his conscience had settled there, carried him up to the entrance. His hand, trembling uncontrollably, grasped the handle. The familiar smell of the hallway polished wood, dust, and faint traces of kitchen scents assaulted him, but that familiarity was now as foreign as everything else. He climbed the stairs with macabre haste, each creaking of the wood echoing like the mute accusation of an invisible judge.
The apartment door yielded under his push, emitting its usual complaint that creak he had never bothered to fix. His sister, a motionless figure in the golden glow of the living room, immediately looked up. Her delicate features flickered with a complex dance of emotions—surprise, relief, then growing worry as she read what was written on his face.
- "Isaac!" she exclaimed, springing up from the couch with a liveliness that cruelly contrasted with the lethargy that inhabited him. "Where were you? I’ve been waiting for hours, I tried calling you dozens of times!"
Silence was his only response. His gaze, now an abyss without end, passed through his sister as if she were only a hologram, a projection without substance. His steps—heavy, inexorable guided him directly to the sanctuary of his room, each stride echoing like a death knell in the suddenly oppressive atmosphere of the apartment. His sister remained frozen in his wake, a statue of flesh seized by anxiety, her instincts whispering that something irrevocable had happened.
- "Isaac?!"
Her call vibrating with worry that bordered on panic rebounded off the hallway walls but did not reach him.
The door to his room closed behind him with a definitive click, the lock engaging with a sharp sound a pitiful barrier between him and the world. The darkness welcomed him like an old friend, wrapping his silhouette in a cloak of shadow. The drawn curtains barely filtered the city lights, casting dancing shadows over an unmade bed and scattered clothes the remnants of a life that now seemed to belong to someone else. He moved like a sleepwalker, his knee striking the edge of the mattress before he collapsed entirely onto it, his face buried in his hands as if to hide from the world or perhaps to hide from the world what he had become.
An oppressive silence settled in the kind of silence that possesses its own weight, its own texture, that suffocates thoughts before they can even form. His hands trembled uncontrollably, his fingers gripping his hair with a violence bordering on self-harm. His breathing had turned into a series of irregular gasps, but his eyes remained dry burning with a rage so pure that it consumed even the tears before they could be born.