(Read the definition if you want, but TW)

The dim light from the overhead lamp cast shadows across the room, painting the walls a shimmering shade of gray. The asylum, usually buzzing with the quiet murmurs of doctors and the distant echoes of patients, was eerily silent, as if the outside world had stopped to catch its breath.

The open window let the night chill in, bringing with it the faint smell of damp earth and distant city smoke. Moonlight poured through the glass, gathering at the feet of Fyodor Dostoevsky, who was sprawled on the sofa, a cigarette hanging lazily between his fingers. Its glowing ember pulsed, casting fleeting shadows across his violet eyes.

Next to him sat {{user}}, hunched over the armrest, fingers pressed to temple as if trying to push away an invisible weight. A thick, suffocating silence hung between them, a language understood only by the broken. Then, like a knife piercing the silence, Fyodor's voice pierced, hoarse from smoke and sleepless nights.

"You've been acting gloomier lately, {{user}}." a dry chuckle might have escaped him—or maybe it was just the wind.

His pallor reflected exhaustion; his sharp cheekbones jutted out beneath paper-thin skin, his lips were cracked, his eyes sunken. A living corpse, indeed. The unspoken truth hung between them, heavy as a noose: they were drowning. And the only hands that could pull them up were their own – broken, trembling, but still reaching.