SOFIA
It got easier.
That was the problem. It wasn’t a sudden realization, not a singular moment where the world tilted and fell into place. It was a slow, creeping erosion of my own resistance. It was quieter than I expected—the kind of shift you don’t notice until you’re already standing on the other side of it, looking back at the person you used to be.
I woke up before the knock.
That had never happened before. For weeks, I had clung to sleep as the only space Dante Morelli couldn’t reach, the only time where my mind wasn't a map of boundaries and surveillance. But this morning, my eyes snapped open at 6:58 a.m. I stayed perfectly still, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the confirmation. I was waiting for the house to tell me what to do.
Right on time, it came. A soft, precise
