The Bait and the Trap

The world had bled out of me with Derrick. Not in a dramatic, movie-scene sort of way, but a slow, agonizing seep, like water through cracked earth. Each breath felt like a betrayal, a reminder that he couldn’t take one with me. The last time I’d seen him, he was just… gone. Vanished into the same suffocating darkness that had swallowed our parents, leaving behind only a chilling silence and the phantom scent of old books and something sharp, like ozone. It was the kind of absence that screamed louder than any sound.

Issac hadn’t been able to find him. We’d torn through the city, the familiar, grimy alleys and hidden courtyards of our makeshift sanctuary now feeling like a labyrinth of despair. Issac’s usual sarcasm was a brittle thing, his eyes wide and unnervingly still. He’d held my shoulders, his grip tight, trying to anchor me to a reality that felt like it was disintegrating around me. “Jeff, man, we gotta move. We can’t stay here. Not now.”

But moving felt like abandoning Derrick all over again. It felt like admitting he was truly lost. And the thought of being truly lost, of being utterly alone, was a cold dread that had settled deep in my bones. It was the same fear that had gnawed at me when our parents had just… left. Fifteen years old, and suddenly the world was a gaping void. Derrick had been my anchor then, the quiet, steady presence in the storm. Now, the storm had claimed him.