The rain fell steadily, a cold, endless drizzle that blurred the edges of everything I saw.
It wasn't the kind of rain that made you want to dance or forget — it was the kind that soaked into your bones and settled there, a quiet reminder of loss and loneliness. I sat by the window of our new house in Duskmere, tracing circles on the fogged glass with my fingertips, watching the lake disappear into a curtain of mist.
Moving here wasn't a fresh start. It was running from something that had already broken me. The day we left the town where my brother died, I thought maybe the ache would ease, but grief isn't a wound that closes with distance. It follows you like a shadow, growing heavier with every step you take away from it.
Mom barely spoke during the drive. She stared ahead, her face pale and tight, like she was holding back a storm of her own. I wanted to reach out, to say something that would stitch the pieces back together, but the words wouldn't come. Instead, I carried the silence with me, a weight heavier than the rain outside.
That night, when I stood under the hot water of the shower, trying to wash away the memories, I noticed the mirror fogging faster than usual. When I wiped it, the words stared back at me, written in the condensation: Don't stop looking for me. My breath hitched. I knew I hadn't written them. No one else was in the house. The message felt like a thread pulling me toward something I wasn't ready to face.
Later, alone in the dark, I whispered a name I didn't understand but felt like a key unlocking a door inside me — Soren.Saying it aloud was like admitting I was still searching, still hoping, even when everything told me to stop.
Outside, the rain kept falling. It wasn't ready to let go, and neither was I.
The rain tapped softly against the windowpane, a steady rhythm that filled the silence of the house. I pulled my knees to my chest and stared out at the gray lake, where the water swallowed the shore like it was trying to erase something — or someone. The sky was heavy with clouds, and the world felt suspended, caught in that delicate moment before a storm breaks or fades away.
I wondered if the lake remembered him. If it held onto the memory of my brother, the way I did. Sometimes I imagined the water cradling his name, whispering it back to me when the wind shifted just right. But no matter how long I waited, the lake remained still, indifferent to the pain it had caused.
My sketchbook lay forgotten on the floor beside me. I had tried to draw him again today, but every line I made was wrong — the angles too sharp or the shadows too soft. It was like his face was a puzzle with missing pieces, slipping further away every time I tried to hold onto it.
Grief is strange like that. It doesn't just break you; it reshapes you into someone you barely recognize.
The house creaked around me, old wood settling in the quiet. I could almost hear Mom moving upstairs, footsteps muffled by the thick carpet. She was still awake — probably staring at the ceiling, just like me. I wanted to call her, to ask if she ever thought about him, but the words got stuck halfway out.
Instead, I stayed in the dark, tracing the raindrops sliding down the glass, feeling the ache settle deeper inside my chest. It was a heavy kind of loneliness — the kind that comes when everything familiar is gone, and you're left holding onto memories that only hurt.
And then, through the quiet, I heard something else. A soft whisper, almost carried by the rain itself. A voice I couldn't place, but one that felt like it was calling my name.
I closed my eyes, and for a moment, I thought I saw a figure standing at the edge of the lake — a boy with wet hair and eyes full of secrets. He didn't say anything, but somehow, I knew he was waiting.
Waiting for me.
I lay, still awake, listening to the steady drumming, trying to convince myself it was just water falling, nothing more.
But deep down, I knew better.
Because when I closed my eyes, I saw him again — that boy, standing at the lake's edge, soaked to the bone, watching me with eyes that held questions I wasn't ready to answer. He wasn't my brother, but he wasn't a stranger either. There was something familiar in the way he waited, patient and silent, as if time itself bent around him.
And when I reached out, words forming on the tip of my tongue, the rain seemed to swell — growing louder, heavier, almost as if it was warning me to stop.
But I couldn't.
Somewhere beneath the surface, beyond the cold water and the mist, something was calling me. Something I was meant to find.
The kind of thing you only discover when you're willing to lose everything.
The rain carried a name I didn't know yet —
but soon, I would learn to say it.