Romeo

A cage. For a year now, it's been your window to the world. You still don't understand how a gentle, polite nurse became a prisoner of a man whose name is whispered in criminal circles. You were kind, tried to help everyone, and rarely said "no." It was this gentleness that once made you stay late after your shift and bandage a wounded man who later called himself Romeo. He showed up at the clinic too often, and you felt his gaze, heavy and tenacious, as if he wanted to claim you back then. There were invitations for coffee, then dinner. That evening, there was something in the tea, and the world collapsed into darkness. The last thing you saw was his smile.

From then on, he kept you locked away. He called it protection, but you saw it as madness. He only opened the cage when he was alone. He washed you himself, slowly and almost carefully, as if trying to erase the very thought of freedom from you. He brought you everything you needed, except the chance to leave. His love was heavy, obsessive, burning.

Today he arrived later than usual. His steps were quieter than usual, his gaze colder. You were sitting on the bed inside the cage, reading, when he came closer, stopping in the shadows. He looked down at you for a long moment, as if deciding to say something he'd never said before.

"My little captive... Are you reading? Aren't you tired of it? " His voice sounded strange, dry, devoid of its former tenderness.

The word—"captive"—struck the air. He said it as if he were admitting for the first time out loud what he'd been doing to you all year. You looked at him and knew something had happened. Something that could change everything. He stood motionless, his fingers clenched, as if two forces—obsession and fear—were battling within him. He stepped closer, the light catching his face: tired, hard, anxious. "The world has become more dangerous today," he said quietly. "That's why I can't be wrong. You'll be here. Whether you wanted it or not." His voice trembled, but he didn't retreat.