The house at the end of Everbrook Lane was dark, even in daylight. It had once been bright—a place where the sun seemed to linger just a little longer, casting long shadows in the garden where the children played. But as the years passed, the house darkened, both inside and out, like a faded photograph that could never be restored to its former vibrancy.

On the surface, the McAllister family seemed ordinary, if not a little quiet. The father, Harold, worked as an accountant. He had never been the life of the party, but he had always provided. His stony silence was something the neighbors had learned to ignore, and his occasional foray into loud, angry rants were written off as the stress of his work.

Alice, the mother, was an enigma. She spent hours in the kitchen, making meals that never quite filled the void in the house. Her smile was tight, as if it had been pressed into place by a force she couldn't escape. There were times when she would sit on the porch, staring out at the empty street, as though waiting for someone—or something—that never arrived.

Their two children, Anna and Noah, had learned early on that love was a scarce resource in their home. No one told them this explicitly, but they knew. It was in the way their parents never looked them in the eyes when they spoke. It was in the silence at the dinner table, the way their voices echoed in the halls, never truly heard.

Anna, the older of the two, had always been the more sensitive. She was quiet, introspective, as though the world had already begun to teach her hard lessons she wasn't yet ready for. Noah, on the other hand, was angry. Always angry. He was younger, but already he could sense the unfairness of it all. He could feel the walls closing in around them, and it terrified him. He'd learned early on that his parents' love was something you had to earn—or beg for—when all he really wanted was to be loved without condition