For a while after the divorce, life became strangely quiet.

  Too quiet.

  Mark disappeared from our lives almost completely. No phone calls, no visits, no messages—just silence.

  Emily threw herself into routine. Routine was safe. Routine kept thoughts away.

  Morning. Breakfast. Laundry. Cleaning. Grocery shopping. Angel’s naps. Angel’s meals. Angel’s bedtime.

  Every day looked the same.

  But underneath that routine something invisible was growing—something heavy, something no one talked about. Because everyone remembered the courtroom.

  Everyone remembered the words Angel had spoken.

  You will die.

  Emily tried not to think about it. She tried very hard. But fear has a way of slipping into quiet moments, like water leaking through cracks.

  One evening I came over to help with dinner. Angel was three years old now. She sat at the table drawing quietly.

  Her drawings had become strangely detailed—complex shapes, intersecting lines, circles connected with careful patterns.

  Emily watched her from the kitchen, her expression unreadable.

  “Do you ever think about what she said?” Emily asked suddenly.

  I knew exactly what she meant.

  “About Mark?” I said.

  Emily nodded slowly.

  “I keep wondering…” She hesitated. “What if it really happens?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Because the truth was—I wondered the same thing.

  Angel kept drawing.

  Blue lines.

  Red circles.

  Careful connections.

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  Emily brought the food to the table. Three plates. Three forks.

  Everything normal.

  Everything ordinary.

  Then Angel suddenly stopped drawing.

  She looked at Emily.

  Long.

  Carefully.

  Like she was studying something only she could see.

  Then she spoke.

  “You’re going to die too.”

  The fork slipped from Emily’s hand and hit the table with a sharp metallic sound.

  “What?”

  Angel’s voice remained calm.

  Almost gentle.

  “Eighteen months.”

  The room fell completely silent.

  Emily stared at her daughter, her face pale and her breathing shallow.

  “Angel,” she said slowly, “that’s not funny.”

  Angel tilted her head, confused.

  “I’m not joking.”

  Emily forced a weak laugh.

  “Children say strange things sometimes.”

  Angel continued.

  “Next year.”

  Emily stood up abruptly. Her chair scraped loudly against the floor.

  “That’s enough.”

  Her voice was sharp now, almost angry.

  Angel didn’t react. She simply watched.

  “Eighteen months,” she repeated quietly.

  Emily slammed her hands against the table.

  “STOP.”

  Angel fell silent.

  But her eyes never left her mother’s face.

  I had never seen Emily like that before. Her entire body was shaking, her breathing uneven, like someone trying to hold back a scream.

  Finally she whispered,

  “Why would you say something like that?”

  Angel thought for a moment, seriously considering the question.

  Then she answered with simple honesty.

  “Because it’s true.”

  Emily covered her mouth as tears began to fall—silent and uncontrollable.

  I stood up quickly.

  “Angel,” I said softly, “why do you think that?”

  Angel looked at me.

  Her expression thoughtful.

  “I see it.”

  The room felt colder.

  “See what?” I asked.

  Angel pointed toward Emily.

  “Her time.”

  Emily turned away and walked toward the sink, gripping the counter.

  “I’m not listening to this,” she said, her voice trembling. “She’s a child.”

  Angel watched quietly.

  Then she added one final sentence.

  “You know it too.”

  Emily froze.

  “You feel it sometimes,” Angel continued softly.

  “On the balcony.”

  “When you look down.”

  The words hung in the air like poison.

  Emily slowly turned around, her face completely white.

  “How do you know that?”

  Angel didn’t answer.

  She didn’t need to.

  Because we all understood.

  Emily collapsed into a chair, covering her face with her hands.

  That night she didn’t sleep.

  The next night she didn’t sleep either.

  Within weeks the changes became obvious.

  Emily stopped answering phone calls. She stopped meeting friends. She stopped going outside.

  She said the world felt different now.

  Like something was counting.

  Waiting.

  “Do you hear it?” she asked me once late at night, her eyes wide.

  “Hear what?”

  “The ticking.”

  But there were no clocks in the room.

  Emily began removing them anyway—wall clocks, alarm clocks, kitchen timers.

  Anything that ticked.

  Anything that reminded her of time.

  But the countdown wasn’t outside.

  It was inside her head.

  Angel grew quieter during those months. She spoke less and watched more. Sometimes she stood near the window for hours looking out at the street, silent and still.

  Neighbors said the child was becoming stranger—more distant, more unsettling.

  But the real change was happening inside Emily.

  Fear had begun to consume her.

  Slowly.

  Relentlessly.

  And every day that passed made one thought louder.

  Clearer.

  Impossible to ignore.

  Eighteen months.

  The countdown had already begun.