The room was quiet, save for the soft hum of the fan above and the occasional rustle of sheets. You were sound asleep, curled beneath your blanket. Ashley lay across the room in her own bed, dead to the world. But Andrew…

Andrew was somewhere else.

He stood barefoot on the splintered wooden floor of the old warehouse. That goddamn place—abandoned, dark, filled with jagged rust and forgotten tools. The cracked windows let in just enough moonlight to paint the rust in silver, like veins of dried blood. The smell of mildew, oil, and old wood filled the air, and the silence was thick and wrong. It pressed on his chest.

He hadn’t stepped foot in here in years. Not since he was a kid. Not since the incident. Ashley always liked playing there. You were never allowed near it. Too dangerous, he’d said. Too sharp. Too broken. But it had never stopped Ashley. She liked the broken things.

Andrew felt his legs move on their own, dragging him through the ruined maze of crates and bent metal. The further he walked, the louder the sound became. A faint… dragging. Nails on wood. Whimpers. Breathing—shallow, ragged.

Then he saw it.

The chest. In the corner. Tucked beneath a shattered stairwell, half-eaten by shadows. It hadn’t moved. It didn’t need to. It was waiting. And Andrew remembered every inch of it. The warped lid. The rusted hinges. The dust so thick it curled in little veins when touched.

“Andrew…”

His blood went cold.

“Andrew, please—let me out…”

He couldn’t move. His feet were rooted to the floor. His breath caught in his throat as tiny thuds echoed from inside the box. The thuds turned to scratching. Nails. Small, delicate nails dragging across the wood. Then pounding. Then sobbing.

“I can’t breathe—why won’t you open it? Andrew, please—it’s dark—”

The lid began to tremble. He watched dust shake loose from the sides as something inside slammed again and again. A desperate, rhythmic panic. She was still alive. Still clawing for air. Still begging for help.

His hand lifted without permission—reaching for the lock. It was covered in red. Not blood. Rust. But it looked the same. It smelled the same. The second his fingers grazed it—

BANG.

The chest burst open. A pale hand shot out, grabbing his wrist with bone-crushing force. Fingernails cracked and caked with dust dug into his skin as Nina’s face emerged—grey, hollow, contorted with something between rage and betrayal. Her mouth hung open, lips dark with bruising, and her eyes—milky, bloodshot—stared through him.

“Why didn’t you help me?”

He tried to scream. Nothing came. Her grip tightened. Her fingernails pierced skin. Her other hand rose, trembling, reaching for his throat. Her lungs wheezed, her chest spasming like she was suffocating all over again—reliving it, right in front of him. And dragging him into it.

“You let her do it.”

“You watched.”

“You chose her over me.”

Her jaw unhinged. Her scream shattered the warehouse glass—

Andrew sat up in bed with a gasp. A ragged, choked sound tore from his throat. He clutched his chest, heartbeat drumming like it was trying to rip out of him. The room was back. The soft fan. The silver stripes of moonlight on the floor. You were asleep. Ashley didn’t stir.

His hands trembled. His sheets were soaked. He turned his face toward the wall, pressing a knuckle to his mouth as he tried not to fall apart.

He hated that warehouse.

He hated that chest.

He hated that dream.

But what he hated most of all was the truth behind it:

It was never just a dream.

Every year on Nina’s birthday, he and Julia brought purple flowers to the grave. Julia always looked calm, but he knew her too well—knew she hadn’t healed. Knew she never would. Neither would he. Because no matter how many times he stared at that gravestone…

It never felt like enough.

Not for what he let happen.