looks a little like you?”
“Really?” Stella pulled out her phone, using the dark screen as a mirror. After examining herself, she noticed some similarities between them. “I guess so. Our eyes.
do lookalike.”
By the time they reached Arthur’s office, they figured it out. Whether it was the receptionist or Stella herself, they both seemed to share a resemblance to someone.
The Polaroid tucked in the frame on Arthur’s desk showed two young women with radiant, carefree smiles. One of them bore a subtle resemblance to Arthur, while the other sermed to combine features from Stella and the receptionist
“That must be Arthur’s loved one and a relative,” Max and Stella thought simultaneously.
“Take a seat,” Arthur said.
A faint trace of alcohol still lingered on him, as if he’d just come from a work event. He lowered himself onto the couch, his brow deased.
“If you’re ready to join us, head downstairs and complete the paperwork with the receptionist, After that, someone will guide you through Your salary will be set according to the probation period. If that sounds good to you, you can sign the contract.”
in the onboarding process.
For the past three years, whenever Arthur came across someone who even vaguely reminded him of Cindy, he made sure to keep them close.
He never laid a hand on these women. The priest at Southcrest church had advised him that by showing kindness, holding back desire and anger, and praying day and night for the one he missed, he could help smooth her path in the afterlife. He had followed these words to the letter.
Arthur kept these women close, as if their faces, echoing Cindy’s in some subtle way, could make him feel as though she was still with him. Their presence seemed in shield him from the nightmares that plagued his nights, offering him amount of peace in his restless sleep.
He had no clue what the world outside thought of him, nor did he care enough to find out.
Since the day Cindy died under a clear, Boundless sky, Jorleston hadn’t seen a single ray of sunlight. The sun seemed forever hidden behind thick layers of clouds, and the air was beavy with a haze whether it was for or smog, Arthur couldn’t tell–casting a dull, gray shadow over everything around him.
He couldn’t breathe. Every second felt like he was drowning. Sylvan’s binodshot eyes still bumed in his mind, like a pair of harsh red lights hanging above him, watching his every move,
Over the past the years, Arthur had dreamed countless times of Winter crying as she asked, “Authur, why didn’t you save me
He’d also dreamed of Cindy, her body bloated, floating on the water, smiling at him as she said, “Congrats on your wedding. I wish you all the happiness.” Regret and anguish bumed through Arthur’s days and nights like an unrelenting fire. Sleep evaded him. He lit a cigarette with weary hands and stood by the
window.
Would there ever be a place in the sea of homes that he could truly call his own again?
After his fallout with Monica and Stephen, and the divorce from Annette, Arthur found himself with nowhere to go. He’d returned to this small apartment, the one he’d bought years ago when he was still with Cindy
Back then, he was just a student, barely getting by with little money. The modest 650 to 750–square–foot apartment was all he could afford. Winter would sometimes spend the night with the
Those had been the happiest, most carefree days of his life.
The apartment’s layout hadn’t changed. It felt as if Cindy could walk in at any moment, flashing her usual mischievous grin, swiping the cigarette holder from his lips, and saying, “No mote smoking!”
And Winter would be there too, snapping a picture with dramatic flair and teasing. “Arthur, I’m telling Mom and Dad if you keep smolding!”
Now he was completely alone. The two people who had mattered most to him were gone.
The cigarette burned down to the filter, the searing heat snapping Arthur back to the present still, be made no move to put it out, letting the ember scotch a small, red mark on his skin.
The sound of his phone ringing broke the silence. At this hour, it could only be one person–Christine Iverson
“Are you alright? Your last check–up was the months ago. You must have finished whatever you were tied up with.” Her voice was soft, like the first green shoots of spring.
Arthur gave a low hum in reply, casually tapping out the cigarette. “Let’s set it up fort
“I had a feeling you weren’t asleep. Did you run out of sleeping pills again?“ “Yeah Can you give me a higher dose next time?”
for tomorrow altemoon.”
“Don’t you remember your suicide attempt, Arthur? I can’t prescribe more than what’s safe. What you really need isn’t just pills. You need to come in tomorrow afternoon,” Christine said softly
After ending the call, Artur let out a weary sigh. He rinsed his mouth, then unstrapped his watch, revealing a gruesome scarbeneath it.
“Goodnight,” he whispered into the stillness. “Goodnight, Cindy Goodinght, Winter”
But sleep wouldn’t come. In the dark, a bloated face of a woman appeared at his bedside, her eyes as dark as night, streaks of blood–like tears trailing down her
checks
make me drink when you knew I had stomach cancer? Why? You wanted
The floating figure spoke in Cindy’s voice. “Why won’t you look at me, Arthur? Why did you make med me gone, didn’t you? You wanted me to join Winter in the grave.”
Arthur answered, his eyes locked on beer with no fear then “T’s sorry, Cindy.”
it across his face.
A pair of lands tightened around his neck, and his breath came in shallow gasps. His face tumed red, but a falat sinile crept “Killme, Clody,” he wheezed, his volor broken. “Only then can make up for what I did to you both.” The marks on his neck were impossible to miss. Christine only needed a quick look to recognize them as the aftermath of Arthur’s own attempt at self–hann. Back then, right after his suicide attempt, he’d been hospitalized and kept under constant observation. Anything that could pose a threat to him had been tak
of the room by the medical staff.
Christine was assigned as Arthur’s attending physician. He was the first patient she had ever fully taken charge of
She’d already finished her rounds for the night, but for reasons she couldn’t shake, a sense of dread crept in She pushed open the door to Arthur’s toom
It was already midnight, yet he wasn’t in bed. Instead, he sat in the comer of the bathroom, using a jagged piece of a broken shower head to scrape at the skin on his wrist. The plastic was blunt, but he formed it through his flesh and tendons with grim determination
After that incident, Arthur became the hospital’s highest priority for monitoring. A 24–hour surveillance camera was installed above him, ensuring he had no access to anything he could use to harm himself.
That was, until Christine, reviewing the surveillance footage during her routine check, saw him strangling himself with both hands, his eyes closed. It wasn’t enough to end his life. Once he passed out from lack of oxygen, his hands would naturally loosen their grip..
But the sight still lett her deeply shaken. From that moment on, she couldn’t bring herself to let Arthur out of her sight, even for a second.
