Episode.6
903 Words
RICHARD'S POV
The room was silent. Too silent.
Even the ticking of the antique clock on the wall felt hesitant, like it was afraid to remind me that time was still moving while I sat here, stuck.
I sat on the edge of my bed, elbows on my knees, staring at nothing. The dim lamp beside me cast soft light across the room, brushing against the sharp edges of the furniture and my thoughts. My jacket hung over the chair, my tie loose around my neck. I hadn’t moved for a while. I didn’t need a clock to tell me that.
Her face wouldn’t leave my head.
Zoe.
The way she looked at me earlier, quiet, guarded, but different. There was something in her eyes I hadn’t seen before. A kind of strength that didn’t belong to the timid woman I’d married. It unsettled me. It intrigued me.
And it reminded me of something I didn’t want to remember.
I leaned forward, resting my face in my hands. My chest felt heavy. The kind of heaviness that comes before the past decides to pull you under again.
And just like that, it did.
FLASHBACK
Rain.
Endless, angry rain.
I could still hear it pounding against the windshield, I could still see the streaks of lightning tearing open the night sky. I was behind the wheel, my hands tight on the steering, my thoughts a blur. The road was slick, narrow, and cruelly dark.
Then,
Headlights.
Too close.
Too fast.
Everything happened in seconds. The screech of tires, the violent spin, the world turning upside down. The sound of metal twisting against metal.
Then came the silence after impact.
A deadly silence, broken only by the hiss of rain on burning steel.
I tasted blood. My vision pulsed in and out. The smell of gasoline stung my nose. I tried to move, but pain pinned me down. My chest felt like it had been crushed under iron.
And then I heard it.
A voice.
“Richard!”
It pierced through the noise.
Through the pain.
Through everything.
That voice… it wasn’t just sound. It was a memory. It was warm. It was home.
I blinked hard, trying to see through the smoke. A shadow moved outside the broken windshield. Someone was running toward the car, slipping in the mud, falling, getting back up again.
My door was wrenched open. Rainwater poured in. I felt hands on me, shaking, desperate, trembling.
“Richard!” The voice cracked with fear.
I tried to speak. My throat burned. My tongue was heavy. I could barely breathe.
Still, I forced the words out, a broken whisper between gasps.
“Na… na…”
The name slipped out before the world faded.
I jerked upright, breath ragged, heart pounding like I’d just lived it all over again. My palms were slick with sweat. The air in the room felt thick, pressing against my lungs.
I dragged a shaky hand down my face, trying to ground myself. Moonlight streamed through the curtains, soft and cold.
“Nana…” I whispered.
The name still burned on my tongue, even after twenty years.
I swallowed hard, staring at the floor. The pain never dulled. It hid, waiting for nights like this to crawl back out. Every time I thought I’d buried it deep enough, it clawed its way to the surface again.
“I’ve searched everywhere for you,” I muttered under my breath. “For twenty years, Nana. Where are you?”
A single tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it. I didn’t bother to wipe it away. What difference did it make? I’d lost count of how many nights ended like this, with me talking to ghosts.
I had the world at my feet, money, power, men who obeyed without question. But none of it filled the emptiness she left behind.
I clenched my fists, staring at the wall.
Twenty years.
Then my phone vibrated.
The sharp buzz cut through the silence like a blade. My head snapped toward it. Unknown number. I stared at the screen for a long second before answering.
“Yes,” I said, voice flat, controlled.
There was a pause at the other end. A man’s voice came through, low and cautious.
My grip tightened around the phone.
“What did you just say?”
The man repeated himself.
I stood up slowly, every nerve in my body suddenly awake. The air around me felt colder. My heartbeat steadied, but my pulse roared in my ears.
“You found him?” I asked quietly.
Another pause. Then a faint confirmation.
My jaw tensed. “I’ll handle it.”
I ended the call.
For a long moment, I just stood there, staring at the phone in my hand. The weight of those words hung in the air. You found him.
Slowly, I set the phone down on the table, then walked toward the mirror.
The man staring back at me wasn’t the charming businessman the world saw in daylight.
He wasn’t the dutiful son, or the calm leader.
He was the man underneath, the one the night knew too well.
“Nana,” I murmured, my reflection whispering the name back at me. “You’ve been gone too long.”
I exha
Led slowly, the silence trembling around me.
And then I said the words that sealed it.
“Now… someone will pay.”
- Writer
