When Darkness Consumes

When darkness consumes - it doesn't always roar.

Sometimes, it arrives in silence.

It seeps in like cold through the cracks of a worn-down home. Like breath fogging the inside of glass. Slow. Unseen. Until one day, you can't remember the last time you saw the light.

When darkness consumes Venya, it's not with screams or sobs. It's with quiet resignation. With skipping meals, and then forgetting if she ate. With flinching at kindness, because she no longer trusts softness to stay soft. It's with whispering "sorry" to an empty room, just to be safe. It's with staring at the door for hours, trying to guess what mood will walk through it.

It's wearing thin clothes in winter because she doesn't want to ask for more. It's writing a list of things that make him angry - and memorizing it like scripture. It's watching herself disappear a little more each day, wondering if he'd even notice when she's gone.

When darkness consumes Adrik, it's not violent at first. It's the weight in his chest every time he looks at her and sees what he's done. It's the blood on his hands - figurative and real - that never quite washes off. It's hearing silence from her and realizing he used to hate her voice, and now he's terrified it might never return.

It's the hollow echo of a house too big for just one person.

It's watching her pack, and knowing it's too late to stop her without becoming the monster again. It's kneeling in front of a locked door, begging like a man who's never learned how to ask.

When darkness consumes a relationship, it doesn't do it all at once.

First, it frays the thread between two people. It stretches it with silence, wears it thin with blame, coats it in fear. And then, one day - it snaps.

But what they don't tell you is:
Sometimes, after darkness consumes...

What's left behind
can still reach for the light.

Trembling.
Shame-soaked.
Broken in all the places it once held pride.

But reaching.