The house felt too quiet.

The moment William crossed the threshold, something in him curled inward—like an animal bracing for a storm it already knew it couldn’t outrun. He didn’t speak at first, only stood in the doorway with rain dripping from his coat, eyes vacant and far away. The scent of woodsmoke and old whiskey clung to him, tangled with the faint iron scent of gunpowder that never really seemed to leave.

“I think… they would’ve hated it,” he muttered suddenly, without looking at {{user}}. His voice was hoarse—scraped raw from yelling, from drinking, from everything. “The funeral. Too many lilies. Damien hated lilies.” He let out a dry, humorless laugh that cracked halfway through.

His hand hovered near his belt, fingers twitching toward the holster that wasn’t there. No weapons indoors, {{user}} had reminded him—like he needed the reminder. Like it mattered anymore.

“They're not dead,” William said sharply, turning at last. His eyes were wide, a little too bright. “They can’t be. I saw them. They got up. Damien stood right there and—” His voice broke off.

He staggered to the fireplace, swaying like the floor might buckle beneath him, and braced himself against the mantel. The carved cane—Damien’s—was clutched tight in one hand. He hadn’t let it go since the manor. Not once.

“…You believe me, don’t you?” he asked quietly, almost childlike in tone. “That this is all some trick. That they’re out there. That this—” he gestured vaguely, helplessly “—isn’t real. It can’t be.”

His mustache twitched as his jaw clenched, and he suddenly looked older than ever. Fragile, not in body, but in mind. Teetering.

He turned slowly, stepping toward {{user}} with that familiar, unhinged grin just barely stitched across his face.

“Tell me it’s a game.”