Coming Home In The Dark Online

He was inside. The shadows were back to being just shadows. He was home.

Every snap of a twig made his heart kick against his ribs. He found himself walking faster, his breath hitching. It’s just the woods, he told himself. It’s just the wind. But the dark has a way of peeling back the layers of adulthood, leaving behind the shivering child who still believes in what hides under the bed. Then, he saw it—a soft, amber pulse in the distance. Coming Home in the Dark

He knew this road. He’d walked it a thousand times as a boy, yet in the dark, the familiar became alien. The old oak tree at the bend wasn't a landmark anymore; it was a many-limbed giant reaching out through the mist. The rhythmic shush of the waves below sounded like heavy breathing. He was inside

"Elias? That you?" his father called from the kitchen, the clink of a teapot settling the last of his nerves. Every snap of a twig made his heart kick against his ribs

He reached the heavy oak door and didn't bother to knock. He stepped inside, the sudden warmth of the hallway pressing against his cold cheeks like a hand.

The gravel crunched under Elias’s boots, a sound that felt far too loud in the suffocating silence of the valley.