Albert’s knuckles went bone white as he tightened his grip on the reer’s armrests. His eyes stayed glued to the television s, even as his breath came shallow and ragged. The news feed cut to more aerial shots of downtown San Isidro, now cloaked in rising smoke and debris. Eaew image of destruade his heart pound harder, his imagination filling in horrific gaps.

  “Oh, God…” he whispered, leaning forward, his weight nearly tipping the chair.

  Leo tore through the living room, blissfully oblivious to the tension in his father. With a wild whoop, he crashed his a figures together, his voice warbling in mock menace. “I’ve got you now, Vanguard! You’ll never escape my evil clutches!”

  Albert gnced sideways, momentarily distracted. His son held Vanguard and Bgel figures in his tiny hands, bashing them together with joyful abandon.

  “You won’t win this time, Bgel!” Leo growled in a hiriously exaggerated tohat sounded closer to a squeaky goblin than a menag vilin.

  Despite the weight in his chest, Albert cracked a faint smile. He wao scold his son, to tell him the situation was not a game—but what was the point? Leo didn’t uand. He was just a kid.

  Albert’s smile disappeared as the news cut back to Gravitas and Vanguard oreet below. The camera caught the first building colpsing, sending a massive plume of dust into the air.

  “Shit!” Albert swore under his breath before yelling, “Look, Leo!”

  Leo paused mid-crash, blinking at his father’s outburst. His small face sched in fusion as he turned his gaze toward the television. The moment his wide eyes nded on the destru unfolding ons, his expression transformed into one of pure wonder.

  “Whoa… so COOL!” Leo dropped his toys with a ctter and dashed to the TV. Pressing his hands and nose against the s, he squealed, “A supervilin in OUR city! And—” He gasped dramatically, his face lighting up. “OH MY GOSH! It’s Vanguard! Daddy, look! It’s your favorite! YAY!!!”

  Albert couldn’t respond. His son’s joy was a kwisting in his chest. He swallowed hard, his gaze shifting from his son’s beaming face back to the s.

  The camera had zoomed in on Vanguard, the hero standing firm against the chaos, his cape rippling in the wind. Albert’s lips moved in a quiet, desperate plea. “Please protect her—I beg you...”

  Tears welled in his eyes, blurring the s, but his focus didn’t falter. The image hit him like a gut punch.

  A wrecked ambunce filled the s, its once-white hood smeared with blood. More crimson streaked the battered fender, dripping like a macabre waterfall.

  Albert’s stomach ed, and the world seemed to spih him. His wife’s face fshed in his mind. Yvette.

  “Daddy?”

  Leo’s voice broke through, small and uain.

  Albert blinked, quickly wiping at his eyes. “What is it, buddy?” he croaked.

  Leo stared at the s, his earlier excitement dimming. “That ambunce… isn’t that like Mommy’s?”

  Albert hesitated, f his voice to stay steady. “No, son,” he lied, his hand gripping the armrest so tightly it ached. “That’s not Mommy’s.”

  Leo nodded slowly, satisfied with the answer. He turned back to the s, his wonder rekindling as another explosion rocked the se. “Vanguard’s gonna win, right, Daddy?”

  Albert couldn’t answer. His lips pressed into a thin line as the prayer repeated silently in his head. Please…

  Days after the disaster, once Gravitas had been subdued by the Society of Sentinels, a aramedic stood on the Walkers' doorstep and pressed the doorbell.

  Albert answered, his hand shaking as it gripped the doorknob. His eyes flicked up to meet the paramedic’s. The man’s exhausted fad slumped posture spoke volumes before he even said a word.

  Albert’s lips trembled, and he managed a rasped, “God… please, no. Don’t tell me—”

  The paramedic’s eyes softened with sorrow. He nodded, his voice low and den with grief. “I’m so sorry. She’s gone… Your wife was a veritable paragon. One of this city’s true heroes. Regrettably her partner, Jack, passed on as well.”

  Albert staggered back slightly, clutg the doorframe for support. His chest felt hollow, his breath caught somewhere between disbelief aation.

  Leo’s voice cut through the stillness. “Hi!!!”

  Albert turo see his son bounding toward the door, his small face lit with curiosity. Leo stopped in front of the paramedid thrust his hand out, grinning. “Daddy says I have to shake hands with new people. It’s good manners!”

  The paramedic blinked, caught off guard, his lips twitg into a brief, mirthless chuckle. His expression quickly turned pained, as though the boy’s i gesture had struck a raw nerve.

  “Oh…” he said softly, croug slightly to meet Leo’s eye level. “It’s very o meet you.”

  He shook the boy’s haly, his face forced into a tight smile. His other haed on his knee, his knuckles whitening as he fought to maintain posure.

  Albert stood frozen, staring into the distance past the paramedic, his mind rag through fragmented memories of Yvette. Her ugh, her determination, the way she’d kiss Leo’s forehead every night before bed. The weight of the moment pressed down on him, a crushing finality settling into his chest.

  “Daddy?” Leo’s voice brought him back, small and uain.

  Albert blinked, swallowing hard before dropping a hand onto his son’s shoulder. He didn’t trust himself to speak, so he simply the paramedic, who returhe gesture before stepping away, his head bowed.

  The door clicked shut, and Albert slumped against it, sliding to the floor. Leo stood beside him, still holding the paramedic’s handshake in his memory, blissfully unaware of the truth his father now carried.

  Several weeks had passed sihe man in the paramediiform had shown up, making his daddy cry.

  Leo still didn’t uand why that man—someone who had seemed so kind—had done something that made Daddy so upset. It didn’t make sense. And what was worse, his mom still hadn’t e home from work.

  Normally, she came back right after her shift, every siime. She always returo make dio tuck him into bed, to kiss his forehead the way only she could. But now, the days stretched on and on, and Daddy refused to expin why. He just kept saying, “Not now, Leo,” whenever Leo asked.

  It wasn’t like her to break a promise, and that’s what it felt like. Mom had promised she’d always be there.

  What shocked Leo most was the night Daddy took his Vanguard a figure—the same one Daddy had bought for him, the ohey’d pyed with together—and hurled it with all his strength into the family television.

  The gss shattered with a siing crack.

  “DAMN IT!” Albert roared, his face red with rage and tears streaming freely.

  Leo flinched, frozen in pce as he watched his father fall apart. His tiny mind raced to uand why Daddy was so angry. What had Vanguard done? Why was Daddy breaking things?

  Leo hugged himself, his small arms ing tightly around his torso. His eyes darted between the broken TV and his father, who was now slumped on the floor, sobbing untrolbly.

  “Daddy?” he whispered, his voice trembling.

  But Albert didn’t respond. He just kept g, loud and desperate, lost in his own grief.

  Leo stood there, frightened and fused, his small world shattering like the television s. He didn’t know what to do, but he couldn’t look away. For the first time in his young life, his dad didn’t seem like the stro person in the world. Instead, he looked like someone who needed saving.

  The weeks dragged on, and Leo watched his dad slip further away from the person he had known.

  He didn’t feel like pying anymore. The Vanguard a figure—his favorite toy—wasn’t the same. Its face was kinda melted now, the pstic ed and ruined. It sat abandoned in a er, gathering dust.

  The most important lesson Leo had learned in those weeks was simple: stay away from Daddy whearted drinking that smelly brown stuff.

  Leo didn’t know what it was called, but he hated it. The stink alone made his head spin, and worse, it transformed Daddy into someone scary.

  When his dad drank, he yelled and screamed at nothing. Sometimes he’d stomp around the house, knog things over, his voiing like a storm. Other times, he’d slump in the reer, muttering angrily to himself.

  And if Leo got too close when Daddy was like that? Nothing good ever came of it.

  One day, after what felt like forever, Leo’s hunger g him so badly that he couldn’t stay silent anymore. He’d noticed his dad hadn’t touched the smelly stuff in a little while, so maybe now was a safe time to ask.

  “Daddy, I’m hungry… we please eat…?”

  Leo’s voice was small and careful. He stood in the doorway to the living room, wringing his hands nervously.

  For a moment, it seemed like his dad might not have heard him. But then Albert’s head snapped up. His eyes were bloodshot, his fashaven and gaunt.

  “FUG SHUT THE HELL UP, LEO!” Albert bellowed, his voice eg through the house.

  The words hit like a sp, and Leo flinched so hard that he nearly fell. Tears welled up in his wide, frightened eyes as he backed away, trying to make himself small.

  He turned and ran, his tihudding against the floor as he made it back to his room. There, he pressed his back to the door, shaking as sobs wracked his little body.

  Leo cried until he was too tired to keep g. His stomach growled, but the fear in his chest outweighed the hunger.

  For now, it was safer to stay quiet and stay out of Daddy’s way.

  Albert’s dest into despair and anger had bee a dark vortex, pulling both him and Leo into its depths. As his drinking spiraled further out of trol, his fleeting moments of crity dwindled into near-nothingness. Those rare instances when he crawled out of his haze long enough to buy a meal or remember Leo’s existence weren’t enough to terbahe and abuse.

  For Leo, life became an unbearable cycle of hunger, fear, and pain. He learo tread carefully around his father at all times, hiding in ers or behind furniture to stay out of sight. But hunger always won out eventually, f him to approach Albert despite the iable rage it triggered.

  The day Albert threw Leo across the room was a turning point, though not in the way it should have been. Rather than seek help or front the horror of what he’d done, Albert sank deeper into self-loathing, feeding his addi with renewed vigor.

  His work as a wn-care tractor barely kept the lights on, and the financial strain added another yer of bittero his already crumbling psyche. Without Yvette’s ine, he felt adrift, incapable of managing the household or his grief.

  Yet, through the fog of alcohol, Albert’s rese began to shift. It wasn’t just Vanguard or the world he bmed—it was Leo.

  Leo, who was too quiet.

  Leo, who always flinched.

  Leo, who wasn’t like the son Albert thought he deserved.

  Albert’s mind tched onto a narrative that gave him great crity, a way to make sense of his spiral.

  Leo was a disappoi.

  And worse, there was something wrong with his sohought about the times Leo pyed with dolls or ed himself ie’s scarves, pretending to be someone else. It disgusted Albert now, though a tiny part of him remembered Yvette’s amused smile during those moments. He crushed that memory uhe weight of his bitterness.

  Finally, Albert reached a breaking point. The realization of how dangerous he’d bee to Leo g him. But rather than seek help ive Leo to someone who could care for him, Albert cocted a solution that, in his ed state of mind, seemed perfectly reasonable.

  He dug out an old chest from the attic—a sturdy, heavy thing that had beloo Yvette’s mother. It had once been filled with dresses and keepsakes, but now it was empty, gathering dust. Albert hadn’t thought about it in years, but the sight of it sparked an idea.

  At first, the thought made him recoil. That’s insane, he told himself. No, not insane… protective. The more he mulled it over, the more it made sense.

  “If he’s in there, he’ll be safe,” Albert muttered to himself, pag the dimly lit living room. “He ’t bother me, and I ’t hurt him. It’s perfect.”

  He justified it as an aercy, of responsibility. In truth, it was her.

  When Albert finally ered Leo and led him to the chest, the boy didn’t resist. His fear and hunger had hollowed him out, leaving him too draio protest. Albert’s words were sharp and gruff as he expined, “This is for your own good. You’ll be safe in here.”

  Leo stared at the chest, wide-eyed, his small hands trembling. He didn’t uand. He only khat no matter what he said or did, his father wasn’t listening.

  Albert lifted the lid, revealing the dark, empty spaside. For a moment, a flicker of hesitation crossed his face. But it passed as quickly as it came.

  “Get in,” he barked.

  Leo obeyed. He always did.

  As the lid closed over him, plunging him into darkness, Leo curled up into a tight ball. Tears streamed down his cheeks, but he didn’t make a sound. He had learned long ago that g only made things worse.

  Outside the chest, Albert locked it shut with a padlod walked away, telling himself he’d dohe right thing.

  But in the suffog silence, Leo knew ohing for certain: he was pletely alone.