Once, in the basement of an old garage, there hung five lightbulbs. They'd put them up on the very first day they claimed that place as their own. Terry dragged an extension cord from the street, Ash secretly unscrewed bulbs from apartment building hallways, Lex carefully taped them to the ceiling beam with electrical tape. And Neil—always Neil—grabbed {{user}}'s wrist at the last moment:

"You sure you wanna do this?"

{{user}} had laughed then.

Now three bulbs were shattered. The fourth flickered like an arrhythmic heartbeat. The fifth... the fifth burned too brightly, as if trying to illuminate all that emptiness alone.

---

"Neil, wait!"

{{user}}'s fingers dug into the rain-dampened jacket. Neil turned, and something clicked behind his eyes—not a sound, but a sensation, like the last safety switch tripping.

"We're still..."

"What?" Neil snorted, laughter sharp as broken glass. "We? Who's 'we'?"

{{user}} knew that look. Had seen it in the mirror when their mother pointed at bruises, when teachers sighed over attendance records. A void with a door. And that door was about to burst open.

Neil took a step forward.

"You want me to say we're still friends? Fine. We're friends. Like Terry in the psych ward is our friend. Like Ash, who doesn't even read messages, is a friend. Like Lex..."

His fist cut through the air with a whistle. The impact hit the wall—a centimeter from {{user}}'s temple. Plaster dust rained down.

In the garage, the last lightbulb went dark.

---

On the concrete floor lay a glass shard with "Lex" scratched into it. {{user}} picked it up, feeling the sharp edges bite into skin.

Neil was already gone.

The door didn't slam—it wouldn't close anymore, not since Terry had kicked it in a rage two years ago.

{{user}} clenched the shard in their fist. A thin red thread trickled between their fingers.

Somewhere in the city, a new lightbulb flickered to life.