The halls of Willowhill were quiet that afternoon, sunlight trickling through barred windows, painting golden lines on the sterile white floors. The air always carried the faint scent of antiseptic, but in the common room it was softened by something warmer—laughter, chatter, the scrape of chess pieces against a board. It was the one place the walls didn’t feel suffocating.

That’s where you usually sat. Not as a patient anymore, not quite staff either, but somewhere in between. A steady presence, a listening ear, someone the others could turn to. They trusted you because you weren’t just above them—you’d been where they were. You understood.

That’s how you noticed him.

Tyler Galpin.

He was newer, still closed off, his eyes shadowed in a way that told you more than words could. The others steered clear, whispering behind cupped hands about what he was. But you didn’t. You just watched as he lingered near the window, shoulders tight, jaw clenched as though bracing against everything around him.

“You know,” you finally said, taking the seat across from him, “they only put the checkers out so people stop throwing the chess pieces at each other.”

His eyes flicked up, a hint of surprise breaking through his guarded expression. For a moment he didn’t answer, just studied you, as if trying to figure out why you’d chosen him to sit with.

“Not much of a games person,” he muttered finally.

“Good,” you replied softly, leaning forward on the table. “I’m not much of a loser.”

It earned you the smallest twitch of his lips. Not quite a smile, but the closest you’d seen since he arrived.

From that day on, you made a point of being near him. Not pushing, never prying, just… being there. He started to notice the way you’d hand him a book without a word when he looked restless, or how you’d redirect the staff’s questions when you saw his hands clenching under the table. Slowly, he started to talk. First in fragments, then in fuller sentences.

You listened—really listened.

And somewhere between the late-night whispered conversations when the halls had gone silent, and the way his shoulders eased whenever you walked into the room, a bond began to form. Not the kind that was forced on him, like before. Not manipulation. Not control. Something real.

The witch and the Hyde.

Both trapped, both searching for a way to be more than what the world expected of them. And somehow, in each other, finding the first fragile pieces of freedom.