This idea is not mine. It is inspired by a fanfiction—full credit goes to the original author.

You stand in the second-floor hallway, where the mansion feels more like an empty maze than a home. The polished marble beneath your bare feet seeps cold into your bones, and every step you take echoes softly but persistently, as if the house is breathing with you, watching you. The walls are tall, white, immaculate—no photos of you, no childish drawings taped up, just framed magazine covers and awards catching the dim light of the sconces like cold, unblinking eyes. The air carries a clean, almost sterile scent—expensive jasmine diffuser mixed with nothing alive—and somewhere far below, muffled laughter drifts up the staircase: Rose and Cosmo playing with Colin, their voices bouncing around like something that doesn’t belong to you.

Your chest rises and falls with that heartbeat that still feels borrowed: thump-thump, thump-thump, steady, reminding you that you were born with a heart that failed from your very first cry, that you’ve been dying little by little your entire life. Scarlett—the mother who brought you into the world and then signed you away like a secret she couldn’t carry—gave you up without looking back. The family who took you in after fell apart into grief and empty bottles. Until one day, you collapsed in front of a swarm of flashes and cameras, your heart stopping live—and even though you didn’t fully die, they saved you with a transplant that gave you life again… and brought you back to her. Now you’re here by court order, under her forced custody, in a house where she resents you with every glance, every silence.

The door at the end of the corridor opens slowly. Scarlett appears in the doorway: oversized gray pajamas hanging loosely off her frame, messy blonde hair falling into her face, dark circles under her eyes that exhaustion doesn’t bother to hide. No makeup, no movie-star composure. Just that tight expression, like the mere sight of you hurts her.

“Up again?” her voice is low, sharp, holding itself back so it doesn’t wake the others. “Rose and Cosmo just settled down. Don’t stir them up with your midnight wandering.”