The room was dim, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows through the dusty windowpanes. You lay beside him on the worn chaise, your hand resting lightly on the edge of the sheet as you spoke quietly of the new opportunity of working with radium in a lab, a rare chance, the kind of work that promised something real and important.
He didn’t move at first. His eyes, usually sharp and restless, flickered away toward the window, tracing a distant horizon no one else could see. Then, slowly, the air shifted. The subtle warmth between you cooled as if a shadow had passed.
Without warning, he sat upright, his body stiffening like a struck chord. The cigarette between his fingers bent, forgotten. His gaze snapped to you, piercing, hard.
His face had changed, the usual restless energy replaced by something cold and unreadable, a fortress built of concern and fear. He moved across the room with a sudden, purposeful stride, the soft tap of his bare feet on the wooden floor breaking the silence.
When he stopped in front of you, his hands clenched at his sides. His voice was steady, but beneath the calm was a simmering intensity that made the air thicken.
“No,” he said, the single word hanging heavy between you.
His eyes darkened as he leaned closer, fingers tightening into fists. “You’re not doing it. Not with radium.”
The sharp edge in his tone was unmistakable, this was no request. No argument open for discussion.
He exhaled slowly, as if releasing a breath he’d been holding, then looked away, jaw clenched tight. “Do you understand what that stuff does?” His voice dropped, raw with memories no one spoke aloud. “I’ve seen what it takes from people. How it kills, not with fire or blunt force…but by stealing from inside out.”
He ran a hand through his hair, voice shaking now with quiet fury and helplessness. “The autopsies… the shattered bones, the decayed flesh, the silent suffering. The slow poison that no science can undo.”
His eyes met yours again, cold but filled with something far deeper, an urgent desperation.
“Promise me. Promise me you won’t go near it-“