Chapter 38

Clyde POV:

The persistent knocking shattered the suffocating silence of my room, pulling me out of my detached state. "Who's there?" I snapped, my voice dripping with frostiness that mirrored the emptiness within me. Emotion had long deserted me, leaving behind a hollow shell shielded by a carefully constructed facade of indifference.

"It's me," Diyo's voice seeped through the door, tentative and cautious. His request for entry hung in the air, but my determination to remain unaffected held strong.

"What do you want? Why are you here?" I fired back, my words laced with a chilling indifference, devoid of any warmth or interest in his purpose for disturbing my solitude.

The silence that ensued was heavy, pregnant with unspoken apprehension emanating from the other side of the door. I could almost taste the hesitation in Diyo's breath, a tangible unease permeating the air. It seemed as though he could sense the icy reception that awaited him, a reception that had become all too familiar w