The apartment smelled faintly of plaster and old wood. Dust drifted in beams of pale afternoon light that managed to cut through the cracked windows. Though abandoned once, the place was slowly being patched back to life. Paint buckets lined the walls, and a few picture frames leaned on the floor, waiting to be hung. A cardboard box sat on a worn rug near the heater—inside it, Roy’s cat lay curled up, sleeping in perfect comfort.

Roy sat slouched in an old chair, his girlfriend beside him on the armrest, brushing absentmindedly at flecks of paint on her jeans. The knock on the door came sharp, and when Roy answered, two detectives stepped in—serious-faced, coats buttoned tight against the Pittsburgh chill.

“Roy Gray?” one of them asked.

“Yeah…” Roy nodded, cautious.

“We need to talk to you about your family,” the second detective said, eyes scanning the unfinished room. “Specifically, about your father and your sister, Angela.”

Roy’s girlfriend glanced at him, her hand brushing against his shoulder for comfort.

“Listen,” Roy began, his voice low, gravelly. “My mom… she was good to me. To me and Angela both. But she killed herself. My dad made her life hell for twenty years. He’s a drunk. Violent. And yeah… he made me and Angela…” His throat closed for a moment, the words heavy. “He made us do those rituals.”

The detectives traded a quick look. One of them pulled out a small notebook.

“We know this is painful,” the first said carefully. “But we need to ask you some questions about what happened. Sometimes people misremember, sometimes things blur. What you’re going through, the way you feel—it’s normal. We see this kind of trauma a lot.”

Roy looked down at his hands, twisting his fingers together. His girlfriend reached over, squeezing one hand gently.

“We’d like to try hypnotherapy,” the second detective continued. “It’ll help bring you back to when you were a kid. Your room, your memories. You’ll just need to focus on the metronome.”

Roy’s jaw flexed, but he nodded slowly.

⸻

They set up in the bedroom—bare walls, a mattress on the floor, and the rhythmic ticking of a metronome placed in front of him. Roy sat at the head of the bed, shoulders hunched, staring hard at the swinging motion.

“Just relax,” one detective murmured. “You’re back in your old room. Tell us what you see.”

Roy’s breathing grew shallow. “I… I’m in my room,” he whispered. “The door… it’s open.”

“What happens next?”

His voice shook. “There’s… six people. They’re walking in.” His eyes flickered rapidly, following something in his mind. “They’re wearing black hoods. White makeup on their faces.”

“Do you recognize any of them?”

“I… I don’t know. I can’t make out their faces.”

“Was your father there?”

Roy’s breathing quickened. “I don’t know. I don’t know…” He looked up, eyes darting toward the cracked ceiling as if something loomed there. His chest rose and fell in sharp pants.

“What do you see, Roy?”

“I—I can’t—” His voice broke. “Please, make it stop.” He curled forward, groaning, his body folding into itself as his hands covered his face. A sob ripped from his throat, muffled. “I don’t know… I don’t know…”

The detectives tried again, repeating questions, but each answer fell into the same broken refrain. “I don’t know… I don’t know…” until finally his voice collapsed into sobs, his frame trembling.

His girlfriend couldn’t sit still any longer. She slipped onto the bed, wrapping her arms around him, pulling him against her chest. “Shh, Roy,” she whispered, holding him tight. “It’s okay. You’re not there anymore. You’re here with me.”

He buried his face against her shoulder, clutching her like an anchor, his voice raw. “Make it stop…”

She rocked him gently, her cheek pressed to his hair, ignoring the detectives’ pens scratching notes. All she cared about was keeping him safe in that moment, in their half-finished apartment, with the steady purr of the cat from the cardboard box grounding the silence that followed.