....
Seth stood frozen in the hallway, watching as his mother was placed into the black bag.
The two men in EMT jackets moved with a practiced, clinical efficiency, hoisting his mother’s lifeless body onto the stretcher.
One of them murmured condolences on his way out. The heavy door clicked shut behind them.
Moments later, the red and blue lights faded through the frosted windows as the ambulance drove off.
A suffocating silence rushed over the apartment.
’She’s dead now...’
The air in the hallway suddenly felt brittle, seeping through his clothes and settling deep into his bones.
It had been two agonizing months since he first woke up trapped in his younger body.
For sixty days, his mother had neither changed nor improved---she was in a constant miserable state.
He knew this would happen eventually; he had seen it happen before. Yet, waking up to the sound of Maya’s sobbing beside the bed had still ripped the breath from his lungs.
A soft rustle of clothing broke the quiet.
Maya stepped into his sight. She took one look at him and swallowed hard, physically forcing the despair out of her expression.
She dropped to her knees right on the dirty floorboards, bringing herself down to his eye level.
Without a word, she wrapped her thin arms around his shoulders and pulled him into her embrace.
"I’m right here," her voice cracked before she steadied it. "It’s just us now, Seth. But I’ve got you, I promise I’m going to take care of you... We’re going to be okay."
He tried to speak.
The reality of what had just happened and the knowledge of exactly what was coming next felt like a noose tightening around his own neck.
...
With their mother gone, the dam holding everything back for them finally broke. The welfare checks stopped. Without it, Maya’s job could barely pay the rent.
It was a freezing Tuesday evening.
Seth lay quietly on the couch, wrapped in a blanket thanks to a cold, as he watched Maya get ready for work.
She stood in front of the cracked mirror, mechanically buttoning up the uniform for her new job at a diner.
Three heavy knocks echoed against the door.
"Ms. Maya." A calm, smooth voice came through the thin metal door. "We know you’re in there. We can hear the floorboards creaking."
Seth felt a spike of rage tear through his chest at the voice, his small, powerless hands just trembling in the freezing air.
"Your mother left a rather unfortunate ledger," the calm voice continued. "Our firm does not absorb bad investments. A girl your age holds significant market value, and the younger one can be liquidated to cover the interest.
"However, we are perfectly willing to be reasonable, but if you do not open this door so we can discuss the payment we will be forced to recoup our losses through alternative markets."
The man paused, allowing her to mull over her decisions. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Despite that, she didn’t move. For five minutes, the heavy silence pressed them down.
"...We understand that you’re young, so we’ll forgive you just this once. We can talk over the terms another time. Have a good evening at work."
Heavy, unhurried footsteps echoed down the hallway, fading into the street below.
Maya didn’t cry. She just slowly sank to the floorboards, pulling her knees to her chest in the freezing room. Her oversized diner uniform wrinkled around her shrinking form.
Seth looked at her. She couldn’t pretend everything was going to be alright anymore.
It was his turn now to return the favor.
He stood up, wrapping his small hands around her thin shoulders, trying to echo the embrace she had given him on the day their mother died.
"We’ll figure it out. I’m here."
He squeezed tighter, trying to physically force some warmth back into her shivering body.
It was a lie, and they both knew it.
Maya didn’t hug him back. She didn’t push him away, either.
She sat there, her hollow eyes fixed blankly on the wall.
When she finally spoke, her voice was entirely empty.
"No, we’re not Seth. We’re not going to figure it out."
She gently, mechanically unwrapped his small arms from her shoulders and stood up.
She didn’t look at him.
She didn’t promise to protect him or offer a smile like she always did.
Maya quietly picked up her hair brush, shoved it into her bag, and walked out the front door into the bitter evening.
The heavy metal door clicked shut behind her.
....
The days bled into weeks.
During those weeks Maya had avoided him. She left early before he woke up, and came back when he had gone to sleep.
He tracked every single sunset with a knot in his chest.
Finally, the dreaded memory came.
But he had noticed something.
Contrary to his memories, not once had the debtors come.
And the bitter, relentless winter that had suffocated the city for months was suddenly gone. Bright, golden sunlight poured through the glass.
Did something change?
The frost on the windowpane was melting, dripping like soft rain against the outer sill.
’Did I manage to change it?’
It was hard to believe.
For one, he had tried everything he could to try and support the family, but there was no one willing to employ the help of a ten-year-old in the freezing cold.
"Maya?"
No answer.
’She must have gone to work.’
But he found her shoes where she usually kept them.
"Maya??"
The brief flicker of hope died instantly, replaced by a sickening weight that dragged his stomach into his feet.
The golden warmth ended right at the threshold of the hallway.
The bathroom door at the end of the dark hall was slightly ajar.
Seth walked towards it, his hands clenched into tight fists. Every step forward felt like he was dragging his feet through concrete.
His mind had tried to prepare for this for months, but as his hand touched the cold handle and pushed it open—
He found her.
The breath left his lungs in a sharp gasp.
No matter how much he prepared, seeing the brutal reality of what the world had driven his sister to do slammed into his chest with the force of a physical blow.
His legs gave out, his knees slamming hard into the tiles.
He couldn’t scream.
He couldn’t even breathe.
He just stared, the deafening roar of his own heartbeat drowning out everything else in the stagnant room.
’She’s dead...’
Three sharp raps at the door shattered the stillness.
Seth slowly turned his head towards the entryway, his vision completely blurred with tears. He dragged himself off the tile and stumbled towards the front door like a ghost.
His trembling fingers reached up and turned the heavy deadbolt.
The door creaked open.
The person wasn’t a paramedic, or a landlord, or an officer.
It was Virgil.
A younger version of him.
"You know you don’t have to keep going."