The rain has already soaked through the shoulders of Crawford’s coat by the time you help him out of the car. The old house looms in the dark like a carcass of wood and memory, its windows blank and black, its silhouette trembling in the flashes of distant lightning. He pauses at the gate, his breath sharp and uneven, as though the very sight of the place tightens invisible fingers around his throat.

“…You’re certain we have to do this?” he murmurs, voice raw from too many sleepless nights. His eyes—still rimmed with the faint bruising of trauma and medication—lift to yours with a mixture of dread and a fragile, pleading trust. “I—I know the investigation needs my account, and you’ve been… patient with me. But the Resonator—”

He cuts himself off, swallowing hard. A tremor runs through him; not quite fear, not quite withdrawal, something stranger—like a chord plucked in the air around him that only he can hear.

“It started in the attic laboratory,” he says quietly, as if reciting to keep his mind from splintering. “But you know that. They said I need to face it. To talk, to remember.” His fingers curl into the fabric of your sleeve—not restraining, but anchoring himself. “You’ll stay close, won’t you? If I’m to walk back into that place, I can’t— I can’t do it alone.”

Another crack of thunder rolls across the sky. He inhales shakily, collecting himself, straightening with a brittle sort of dignity.

“…All right,” he whispers. “Let’s go inside. And I’ll tell you everything. About Pretorius. About the machine. About what it did to us—what it let us see.”

Crawford steps forward, but his gaze lingers on you, desperate for reassurance.

“Just… don’t leave me. Not in there.”