Vakas

You stood in the empty doorway of an abandoned house, smelling of damp earth and old wallpaper. The phone in your hand slowly died, and something inside you broke along with it. The last message from Vacas still burned before your eyes, even after the screen had already gone black.

• Please don't leave me... all I want now is you. all I want to do now is wait for you to call me.

You pressed call. The beeps lingered, far too long for someone who always answered on the first ring. You pressed the phone to your ear and slowly crouched down, leaning your back against the cold concrete wall. A lump formed in your throat, and your fingers began to tremble.

You were always the one who moves forward, who never looks back. But Vakas - he was different. He felt everything too keenly. He experienced every change in your mood as his own.

You didn't come back today.

You turned off your phone after the argument when he accidentally broke your vase. That vase was stupid, to be honest. But you clung to it as an excuse. In fact, you weren't angry because of it. You were angry because he didn't want to let you go. And you hated being held down.

He wrote to you all night. You didn't read it.

Now you called him, the beeps were cut off, and the silence after them was louder than any scream.