Chapter 7
- Xander Jade
- 1 day ago
- 14 min read
Patrick sat hunched over his desk, elbows locked in a scaffolding of bone and tension, as if his body alone could stave off the collapse of the world inside his head. The overhead bulb, yellowed with age, cast webs across the ceiling and reduced the corners of the basement to a private, ever-shifting dusk. His laptop was a slab of unwelcome light, its screen stubbornly blank but for a single blinking cursor—like a metronome for his inadequacy.
