The dream always started the same.
Eliot stood barefoot in a corridor of black water, knee-deep and ice cold. There were no walls. No ceiling. No sky. Only infinite darkness in every direction, like he was floating inside the pupil of some blind god. The air was still and heavy, pressing down on his shoulders like invisible hands. He never heard his own footsteps. The water didn't ripple.
It just waited.
Something flickered ahead in the dark. A shape.
He couldn't tell if it was a person or a creature. It didn't move like either. It pulsed, like it was breathing in reverse, contracting instead of expanding. Still and slow.
He couldn't look away.
A chill crawled up his spine. His legs started to backpedal, trying to move—but he couldn't tell if he was even walking. Nothing made a sound.
Then he felt it.
Behind him.
Closer than anything should ever be.
A whisper.
"Let me in..."
His neck stiffened.
"Let me in…"
Each repetition coiled around his ears, soft and cold.
"Let me in…"
Eliot's eyes snapped open.
His body jolted upright in bed, lungs gasping for air, his shirt clinging to sweat-soaked skin. The silence of the room was deafening compared to the voice that had just been inside his head. Only the slow spin of a dying ceiling fan filled the space above him.
He stared at the cracked plaster on the ceiling and exhaled with a low, tired groan. "Not again…"
Outside the window, pale sunlight crept through broken blinds. It looked like morning. It always felt too early.
His bones ached. His chest felt hollow, like his ribs had been scooped out in his sleep. Eliot swung his legs over the side of the bed and let them rest against the cold wooden floor. He rubbed his temples and let the air sit still for a moment.
Another day.
He dragged himself to the bathroom, not bothering to turn on the light at first. The cracked mirror greeted him with the same blank stare he gave it every morning. Sunken eyes. Pale skin. Bruised knuckles. Seventeen years old, but he felt older. Like the world had already used him up.
He turned on the shower and stepped in, letting the cold water slap him awake. He closed his eyes.
And the past came flooding back.
It always found him here.
Memories were hardest to block out when the water ran down his back. It reminded him of that basement, the dripping, the cold, the smell of concrete and metal.
He never knew his real parents. They left him at the steps of an orphanage when he was barely a year old. Maybe they couldn't afford him. Maybe they didn't want him. He used to wonder about that a lot. Now? He didn't care.
The orphanage was a grey little building filled with too many children and not enough love. But Eliot was a quiet kid. Didn't talk much. Didn't fight. He just waited.
At twelve, a smiling couple came to adopt him. They looked normal. Clean clothes. Kind faces. Soft voices.
It was the first time he'd ever felt wanted.
They took him to a real house. Gave him his own room. Bought him clothes and toys. He remembered lying on the new bed and crying—not because he was sad, but because the sheets smelled like laundry, not mildew.
For a few weeks, it was everything he dreamed.
Then it changed.
The woman, she started yelling. It started with spilled milk, unwashed hands, shoes left by the door. But soon she was screaming over everything. The man—her husband—was barely home. And when he was, he didn't speak to Eliot. Just stared past him like he wasn't there.
Then came the night they argued.
Loud. Violent. She screamed his name like it was poison.
She burst into his room and hit him across the face.
"You're the reason he doesn't love me anymore!"
She hit him again. And again. Eliot begged her to stop. He didn't understand. He didn't even know what he'd done.
The last thing he remembered was the smell of alcohol on her breath.
When he woke up, he was naked. In the basement. Cold, hungry, afraid.
That was the beginning of three months of hell.
She beat him daily. Starved him. Touched him.
Sometimes she spoke like he wasn't even a person. Just something to blame. Something to punish.
He didn't know how he survived it.
One day, she left the basement door unlocked. He didn't wait. He ran. And didn't stop running.
Back in the shower, Eliot pressed his forehead against the tile wall. Water slid down his face, masking the tears he didn't let fall.
He didn't go to the police. Who would believe him? Who would care?
He lived on the streets for nearly a year. Picked up trash. Slept in parks. Took odd jobs. Eventually, a mechanic gave him a chance. Then a grocery store. Then a bakery.
Three jobs.
Every day, he worked until he couldn't stand anymore. He earned just enough to rent a tiny studio apartment in the older part of town. It wasn't much—but it was his.
He even put himself in school. Not a good one, but it was something.
He believed somewhere deep down that if he just kept moving forward, maybe he could leave the past behind. Maybe education could open a door he hadn't seen yet.
But even school had its own hell.
The students mocked him for the secondhand clothes he wore. They whispered when he passed. Laughed behind his back.
Teachers saw it. Heard it.
Did nothing.
Eliot learned quickly that no one would help him. No one was coming to save him. And honestly? He didn't expect them to.
He never expected anything anymore.
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.
The alarm cut through the silence like a scream.
Eliot shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. Steam filled the tiny room, clinging to the cracked mirror and faded tiles. He wiped his face with a towel and stared at himself again.
Just another day. Another sixteen hours of exhaustion and silence and fake smiles.
He grabbed his uniform from the hook and got dressed.
His chest still ached from the dream. That voice
"Let me in...", felt like it had followed him out of sleep and into the real world.
He ignored it.
He had a job to get to.
And a bucket list to finish.