The Inheritance

Chapter Four - False Calm

For the next few days, something strange happened—nothing. The familiar terror of sleep paralysis, the voices, the suffocating presence in his room—it all vanished as suddenly as it had come. Mike woke each morning surprised, almost cautious, as if the nightmares were waiting just out of sight. But the days passed uneventfully.

It felt like a weight had lifted from his chest. Maybe, he thought, it really had been stress. The long hours at the pub, the constant worry about his mother, and the gnawing anxiety about his own mental health—perhaps it had all simply pushed him over the edge.

He found himself breathing a little easier, sleeping through the night, and finally feeling more like himself.

On the third day, Mike met up with a few of his friends from outside the pub. He hadn't seen them in a while—his isolation had grown as his sleep disturbances worsened—but tonight felt different. He wanted to be around people, to laugh and forget about the dark corners of his mind.

They gathered at a quiet café downtown, a place they used to frequent before life got in the way. There was Paul, the goofy tech guy who always had a conspiracy theory or a gadget to show off, and Sara, sharp-tongued but fiercely loyal, who had known Mike since high school.

"Man, you look like hell," Paul said as Mike took a seat. "What's been going on? Work killing you?"

Mike chuckled, shaking his head. "Yeah, something like that. Just had a rough couple of weeks, but it's getting better."

Sara narrowed her eyes. "You sure? You've been MIA for a while. We were starting to think you'd gone into hibernation."

"I just needed some time to sort things out," Mike replied, feeling the familiar guilt of having distanced himself from his friends. "But I'm good now. Seriously."

The conversation flowed easily after that, moving from light banter to deeper topics. For the first time in weeks, Mike found himself relaxing. The laughter came easier, and the tension in his chest that had been there for so long seemed to fade into the background.

"So, how's your mom doing?" Sara asked casually, her tone gentle. She knew about his mother's struggles, about the depression that had clouded her life for years.

Mike paused, unsure how to answer. His mother had been in one of her dark phases again, the phone calls full of long silences and empty words. But he didn't want to think about that now. Not when he was finally starting to feel normal.

"She's... the same," he said, keeping his voice neutral. "Some good days, some bad days."

Sara nodded, not pressing the issue. But Mike could feel the unspoken concern lingering in the air. His friends had always worried about him—how his mother's depression weighed on him, how it affected his own mental health. He had brushed off their concerns in the past, but now he wondered if they had been right all along. Maybe everything he'd been experiencing was a byproduct of that.

As the night wore on, Mike realized just how much he had missed moments like this—being surrounded by people who didn't ask for anything more than his company, people who had known him long enough to understand when not to push.

Maybe things were finally turning around.