CHAPTER HUNDRED & SEVENTY

CHAPTER HUNDRED & SEVENTY
KYLE

It’s been two weeks.

Fourteen days.
Three hundred and thirty-six hours.
I counted. Twice.

And the house has never been so quiet.

Even the air feels like it's holding its breath.

I’m on the living room floor, building a kingdom out of Lego bricks—again. The dragons have taken over the mountains, the knights are staging a very slow and dramatic rebellion, and I gave the tiny chef a sword because he deserves to feel powerful too.

Usually, I’d narrate all of this out loud—adding voices, accents, epic declarations of vengeance. Lucian always rolled his eyes, but he’d smile too. He’d pretend not to be listening until the plot got juicy, then ask subtle questions like, “Wait, why is the wizard also a chicken?”

But now…

Now I talk to no one.

Because Lucian doesn’t answer anymore.

It’s been two weeks since he disappeared.

One full day, just—gone. No goodbye. No note. No warning. Just gone like he’d been snatched out of the air. I waited by the garden door for hours that night. I didn’t eat dinner. I didn’t sleep. I kept expecting him to come home with some weird story about getting lost or chasing Ezra through a hedge maze or falling asleep in the library again.

But when he came back the next morning… something was wrong.

Something was missing.

He didn’t say anything to me. Not a single word. No “Hey, Brambleton.” No sarcastic nicknames. No head ruffles or weird philosophical nonsense about clouds.

He just walked past me.

Like I wasn’t there.

Like I was part of the wallpaper.

I thought maybe he was mad. Maybe I said something. Did something. So I followed him around like a puppy for two days—talking, joking, even offering him the last chocolate bar (and I never give those up).

But he didn’t bite.

He barely looked at me.

Then Mom stopped smiling the way she used to.

It was subtle at first. Her lips would curve, but her eyes stayed… tired. Hollow. Like someone had unplugged her joy and left the frame behind.

I caught her crying in the laundry room two nights ago. She didn’t see me. I tiptoed away before she could.

And Dad?

Dad’s been acting like everything’s normal.

Only—it’s not.

He checks on Lucian constantly now. Not in a dad way, but in a weird “scientist watching a test tube” kind of way. I saw him unlock Lucian’s door once. He went in with a tablet and came out looking like someone who’d read a bad report card.

He says Lucian is sick.

That he’s unstable.

That he’s having episodes.

“He’s seeing things, Kyle,” he told me one night when I asked why Lucian won’t talk to me anymore. “His mind is trying to protect itself. Sometimes, when people go through trauma, they create entire worlds to cope.”

“But he’s Lucian,” I said. “He’s not crazy.”

“He’s confused,” Dad replied, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder. “He believes he met someone who wasn’t there. A boy in the garden. You didn’t see him, did you?”

I shook my head.

He smiled softly. “Exactly. You’re not broken, Kyle. But Lucian… he’s struggling. He’s imagining things. We’re doing everything we can to help him.”

But if he was helping…

Why did Lucian look so scared the last time I saw him through the crack in his door?

Why did he flinch when I said his name?

Why did he look like he wanted to speak and couldn’t?

I don’t understand what’s happening.

All I know is this:

Our house feels haunted.

Not with ghosts—but with silence.

The kind that creeps in through the vents and under your skin. The kind that steals sound and color and warmth.

I keep waiting for something to snap. For Lucian to storm down the stairs and yell at me for breaking the castle walls again. For Mom to laugh for real. For Dad to stop watching us all like we’re bugs in a jar.

I miss my brother.

Not just the version who played chess with me even though he hated it. Or the one who explained books I didn’t understand.

I miss the version of Lucian who still felt like Lucian.

The one who noticed things.

The one who listened.

I know something happened.

I don’t know what.

I stared at the last Lego knight I’d been holding, then slowly set him down. He didn’t look brave enough to save a kingdom today.

Neither did I.

But I still stood up, brushing crumbs off my pants, and padded quietly toward the hallway.

Lucian’s door was at the far end. Same as always. Same peeling sticker on the corner, same crooked little nameplate we made as kids. “LUC—IAN” in glitter glue, with a smear of green from the time I tried to turn the ‘C’ into a frog.

The hallway felt longer than it ever had. Like the silence had stretched it out, made it colder. Every floorboard creaked a little too loud, like the house was trying to stop me.

I reached his door. Pressed my hand to the wood.

“Lucian?” I said quietly.

No answer.

I waited, then knocked—softly, three times.

Still nothing.

“I built a new fortress,” I said, forcing my voice to stay light. “There’s a chef with a sword. And a chicken wizard again. I know you secretly liked him.”

Silence.

I swallowed and turned the knob.

It was unlocked.

I pushed the door open slowly.

The room was dim. The curtains still drawn. But this time, something was different.

The bed was empty.

Neatly made.

Too neatly.

Lucian’s jacket wasn’t hanging from the chair anymore. His notebooks were gone from the desk. The cups were cleared. The window was latched.

It didn’t look like a room someone was staying in.

It looked like a room that had been emptied.

No…

“Lucian?” I called, stepping in, heart pounding. “Are you… are you hiding?”

No answer.

I crossed the room, pulled open the closet.

Empty.

I checked under the bed.

Nothing.

I backed up slowly and turned in a circle, trying to find something—anything
Then I noticed something sitting on top of his drawer. 

A sheet of thick paper.

A painting.

I climbed off the bed slowly, heart thumping as I approached it.

It wasn’t big. No signature. Just… eerie.

The background was all dark tones—smoky grays and slashes of muddy reds. A building loomed in the distance, all sharp angles and no windows. But what made my stomach twist wasn’t the building.

It was the figure in front of it.

A boy.

Strapped to something metal. A table or bed—I couldn’t quite tell. His arms looked bound. His head hung limp. And on his back… there was something sticking out. Like a thick wire or port, painted with such sharp, detailed lines it made my skin crawl.

I blinked hard, then leaned in closer.

I looked down at the edge of the dresser.

There were more things.

A crumpled napkin stained with charcoal. A small gas lighter—the clicky kind Mom keeps in the emergency kit. Three partially burned matches. A bottle of what I thought was glue at first, but when I sniffed it, my nose crinkled. Rubbing alcohol. And behind that—something even stranger.

A short, rolled-up strip of cloth.

Black.

Singed at the edge.

What the hell was Lucian doing with these?

I stared at the painting again.

The dark building. The boy.

Was he trying to send a message?

Was this a warning?

A memory?

Or a plan?

Just then—

A sharp crack.

Not like a door slamming. Not like something falling.

A pop—then another.

Followed by screams.

Shouting.

The air shifted. Something hot, sour, and sudden blew in through the half-open window.

I ran to it and looked out.

At first, I saw nothing but night and trees.

Then—light.

Not from the moon.

From fire.

Rising over the hedge wall like a second sun.

The East Wing.

Flames licked at the edge of the roof, smoke curling into the air in thick black clouds. People were running—security, staff—some with radios, others shouting into phones. Alarms were going off now, blaring in shrill, broken patterns. The kind that weren’t meant for drills.

My heart leapt into my throat.

Lucian.

Was this him?

What had he done?

And more importantly—why?