Early Christmas Present

Door Left Unlocked

Chapter 2

The world felt hollow.

Every step Ruth took away from that apartment felt like walking on shattered glass, not just beneath her feet but inside her chest. The faces of Felix and her best friend blurred through her tears, yet the betrayal burned clearer than anything she had ever known.

The two people she trusted most.

The two people who swore they understood her.

They had known her since college. Late-night study sessions, shared secrets, whispered dreams about the future. When Felix started dating her, her best friend had been the happiest, cheering loudest, telling Ruth how lucky she was.

Lucky.

That word tasted poisonous now.

Ruth staggered into a nearby bar, the kind with dim lights and louder regrets. She didn’t think. She simply pointed at bottles and whispered, “Stronger.”

One glass became two. Two became four.Laughter mixed with sobbing, and somewhere between the haze of alcohol and heartbreak. She saw their faces again — smiling, betraying, destroying her faith.she hated this feeling. How could they do this to her.

“More,” she slurred, sliding her card across the counter without checking the damage it would do to her already struggling wallet.

The bartender watched her carefully. He knew Ruth. Knew her pattern. Knew the number she had given him for nights like this.

As soon as her head drooped onto her arm, he sighed and dialled.

“Come get your sister. She’s in bad shape.”

Her brother arrived within minutes, his face carved with worry and irritation.“Ruth, you absolute dimwit,” he muttered, lifting her carefully. “Is this how you deal with heartbreak now? Drowning yourself like a tragic movie character?”

“Shut up,” she mumbled, blinking slowly at him. “You wouldn’t understand... you still have your dignity.”

He scoffed. “And you’re currently trying to leave yours at the bottom of a glass.”

She tried to swat him but missed entirely, earning an exhausted sigh from him instead.

The night air hit her face as he guided her toward her building. “Let me take you to your door,” he insisted.

“No,” Ruth snapped faintly. “I can walk. You go back. I don’t need a babysitter.”

“You can barely see straight.”

“And yet... here I am,” she muttered, steadying herself against the wall. “Go, before I embarrass you too.”

He studied her for a moment — the stubborn tilt of her chin, the pain she tried so hard to hide — and something in his eyes softened.

“You’re breaking, Ruth,” he said quietly. “And you’re trying so hard to make it look like you’re not.”

She didn’t answer.

She just turned and disappeared into dialled building.

From outside, he watched her figure climb the stairs with unsteady determination and sighed deeply.

His little sister was hurting. And she refused to let anyone see how deep the wound went.

Inside her apartment, the silence was crushing. The broken pieces of the evening replayed in her mind until the alcohol finally dulled the edges.

Ruth dropped her bag on the floor, kicked off her shoes, and collapsed onto the sofa, arms wrapped around herself as if trying to hold together a heart already splintered.

Tears slipped down her cheeks as sleepdragged her slept.

In her haze, she never noticed the soft click of the door failing to close completely.

She never felt the cold air slipping inside.

And she never knew that by leaving that door unlocked, she had unknowingly opened the path to a fate far more dangerous — and far stranger — than simple bad luck.

A shadow moved quietly in the corridor outside.

And the night held its breath.