Chapter Four

The dark pre-dawn sky loomed over the city as Sera slipped quietly out of her apartment. The air was crisp and biting, but she barely felt it. All she could think about was the cold, calculated promise of the dark man who had appeared in their home a week ago. His words had cut through her like a blade, a warning that didn’t fade with time but instead seemed to grow sharper, more urgent. I’ll be back to collect, and you’d better be ready to pay.

The weight of his threat pressed on her chest like a boulder as she hurried down the cracked sidewalk, her footsteps echoing softly in the stillness. She knew, deep down, that she’d never be able to gather $200,000 in a week, but the only thing she could do was try. Try, and keep trying until the last possible moment.

The next seven days became a blur of work, each morning bleeding into the next as she pushed herself to exhaustion. She managed to find extra shifts at the local diner, where she poured coffee, scrubbed tables, and listened to the endless chatter of customers with an aching smile. Every dollar was precious. She took on shifts at the convenience store down the street, organizing the shelves late into the night, her hands growing numb as she stacked cans and swept the floor. Even the bakery agreed to let her help with early-morning deliveries, though it meant dragging herself out of bed hours before dawn to make sure the fresh bread and pastries were on the shelves before the first customers arrived.

The pay was meager, and with each shift, she could feel the growing weight of hopelessness. Her shoulders ached, her feet throbbed, and her eyes burned from lack of sleep, but she forced herself to keep going. Even though she knew it was impossible. She tried to ignore the dark, creeping thoughts that whispered she was wasting her time, that all this work would never make a difference.

By the time she dragged herself home each night, her body felt like lead, her limbs heavy and her mind foggy with exhaustion. Yet, no matter how tired she was, she couldn’t simply collapse into bed. Instead, she’d glance around the cramped, cluttered apartment, take a deep breath, and begin tidying up, gathering the empty bottles her father had left scattered around, washing the dirty dishes piled in the sink, and picking up the trash he’d left behind.

And each night, she prepared a small dinner—a simple plate of rice or noodles, something that didn’t cost much but could at least fill his stomach. She’d leave it on the counter with a note, in case he came home sober enough to eat it. She wasn’t even sure if he noticed, or if he even cared, but it was the one small thing she could do.

As the days slipped by, the deadline loomed closer, pressing down on her like a shadow she couldn’t escape. Her anxiety grew like a vine around her heart, tightening with each passing hour. She became paranoid, constantly glancing over her shoulder, every unfamiliar face in the diner or the store sending a jolt of fear through her. The thought of him returning, of that man standing in her apartment again with that cold, assessing gaze, was a nightmare she couldn’t shake. She felt like prey being watched by a predator, waiting for the inevitable strike.

A week passed like this—one long, sleepless cycle of work and worry. And each day, her father seemed to slip further and further away. He hardly seemed to notice the deadline hanging over them, as though the threat didn’t apply to him. He spent his days sprawled out on the couch, a beer in hand, staring blankly at the television or disappearing for hours on end, returning in the early hours reeking of alcohol and barely able to stand.

One night, as she stumbled through the door after yet another double shift, she paused in the doorway, staring at him from the shadows. Her father was slumped on the couch, his unshaven face cast in harsh shadows from the flickering light of the television. His gaze was unfocused, glassy, as though he were staring at something far away, lost in a memory she couldn’t see. The lines etched into his face seemed deeper, more pronounced, and there was a hollowness to him that was almost unbearable to look at.

“Dad,” she murmured, her voice barely more than a whisper.

He didn’t respond, didn’t even look up, his eyes fixed on the screen in front of him. Sera swallowed, her throat tightening as she fought back the urge to say something—anything—that might pull him back to reality, to make him see the desperate situation they were in. But she didn’t know what words could possibly reach him.

Do you even realize what’s about to happen? she wanted to ask, the question aching in her chest. Do you even care?

Instead, she just stood there, watching him in silence, the memories of who he used to be flickering through her mind. She remembered a man who had once been full of life, who had laughed and told stories, who had danced with her mother in the living room on lazy Sunday afternoons. The man in front of her was a ghost of that person, hollowed out and broken, and she couldn’t understand how he had let himself fall so far. How he could sit there, indifferent to the disaster looming over them, while she worked herself to the bone just to keep them afloat.

After a long moment, she forced herself to turn away, slipping into her bedroom and closing the door quietly behind her. She sank down onto the edge of her bed, her body slumping forward as the exhaustion washed over her in waves. Her hands trembled slightly as she pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to hold herself together, to keep from crumbling under the weight of it all.

Alone in the darkness, she let out a shuddering breath, the reality settling over her like a suffocating blanket. She was on her own. Truly, utterly alone. Her father might be physically present, but he was gone in every other way that mattered.

And with that realization came a cold, hard truth—no one was coming to save her. Not her father, not anyone else. If she was going to survive this, she’d have to do it on her own. She’d have to find a way to protect herself from whatever was coming, because no one else would.

As she lay down on the bed, her mind restless and unable to quiet, she thought of the dark man again—of his calculating stare, his quiet, almost amused cruelty. And for the first time, she felt something other than fear. It was a faint, flickering spark of defiance, a whisper in the back of her mind that told her she’d find a way through this. No matter how impossible it seemed, she’d survive.

But as the hours stretched on, that spark began to fade, buried beneath the weight of exhaustion and despair. She closed her eyes, trying to block out the images of what might happen if she failed. The last thing she felt as she drifted off into a fitful sleep was the dull ache of hopelessness, sinking deeper and deeper into her bones.