Once In A Lifetime

Chapter 1: A Child's Cry

"I've never felt so empty,
Just so full of nothing."
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The wind howled through the open window, whispering secrets only the night could understand. Denise stood there, a ghost of herself, eyes tracing the darkness beyond the glass, searching. Always searching. But there was nothing—only shadows and silence.

She barely remembered his face now, only fragments of a man whose absence had become more real than his presence. Time had stolen his voice, his scent, his warmth—leaving behind only a single, unfulfilled promise. I’ll come back soon.

She had clung to those words like a child gripping the edge of a dream, unwilling to wake up. But now, she wasn't sure if the dream had ever been real.

She was seven the day he left. The world had felt too big, too cruel. Denise had wrapped herself around his leg, tiny hands clenched with desperate strength.

"No… I don’t want you to go! Please, please, please stay, Papa! I’ll be good—I promise!"

His hands trembled as they brushed away her tears. He was a man of promises, and promises were not meant to be broken. But sometimes, promises were all that remained when choices were stolen away.

"Okay," he said, voice soft as a prayer. "Let’s make a deal. I’ll stay, but we’ll have to go back to Mang Johnny’s shop."

Denise shuddered. Even at seven, she knew the weight of a name. Mang Johnny wasn’t just a shopkeeper—he was a shadow, a consequence, a debt waiting to be paid.

"And if we don’t?" she whispered.

"Then I won’t be here to protect you."

The words clung to the air between them, thick and suffocating. Denise wiped the tears from his eyes with small, trembling fingers.

"Don’t cry, Papa. I promise I won’t cry anymore. But promise... come back soon, please."

"Cross my heart, baby." He made the sign of a cross on his left chest to reassure her. "I always keep my promise. right?"

"Yeah," she hugged him.

"That's my girl..."  he whispered.

"I love you. Papa."

He smiled, but it was the kind of smile that broke things.

"I love you more, baby," he whispered. One last kiss on her forehead, one last breath of her scent—then he walked away.

He did not look back.

Denise stood there, sobbing. His silhouette faded into the night. And then, just as suddenly—he was gone.

That was ten years ago.

Ten years of waiting.

Ten years of standing by the window, counting the days, the hours, the minutes.

The waiting became ritual. The windowsill became her altar. She knelt before it every night, whispering silent prayers to the universe, willing time to return what it had stolen.

But time was a cruel thief.

Days and nights... weeks, months, years... became endless moments of counting, waiting, hoping even in her dreams.

But he did not come home.

And promises?

Promises were only words.

Then, one night, something changed. For the first time in seven years, she did not wait by the window. She did not watch the darkness for a ghost. She did not count the hours.

And as if the universe noticed her surrender, a sound cut through the quiet—sharp, raw, full of sorrow.

A child's cry.

Not her own, not this time.

But something in her shattered all the same.

The window remained closed that night.

And perhaps, so did her heart. ❤️
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