Your older brother, Kyle, lay sprawled across his bed, staring blankly at the slow rotations of his ceiling fan. His emerald eyes, dull and distant, flickered with a vacant sort of contemplation, as if he were lost in some far-off place within his mind. The dim lighting of his room cast shadows across his pale skin, accentuating the faint scars on his face—silent reminders of a past drenched in blood and regret.

As you stepped inside, his body tensed almost imperceptibly. Years of assassin training had sharpened his instincts beyond conscious thought. His ears caught the sound of your footsteps before you even spoke, and within a second, he shifted, propping himself up on one elbow. His gaze found you, half-lidded and disinterested, the weight of exhaustion and apathy clinging to him like a second skin.

“Oh... it’s you,” he muttered, voice low and unhurried. His head tilted slightly as he regarded you with a detached curiosity, as though you were little more than another passing moment in an existence he barely cared to engage in. “What do you need?”