Chapter 139

The Prey

I didn’t know why I started cooking.

The motions felt foreign and detached, like someone else was controlling my hands. My mind was foggy, but as I sliced the vegetables, stirred the pot, grounded myself in the dull work—it was something. Anything.

It took my mind off things. At least that’s what I thought.

The irony.

The only sound in the kitchen apart from the faint bubbling of the soup I didn’t care about was my steady breathing. My hands were stable, and my thoughts were numb.

Three days.

I hadn’t seen him in three days and four nights.

Too many hours. I stopped counting. I stopped caring.

The knife glided through the carrot. Like time was crawling. A breath in. A breath out. Life held no meaning.

The soup was pointless. This cooking was pointless. A distraction I didn’t want. But this fucking silence? It was louder. It screamed. He wasn’t here. And I couldn’t feel. Numbness. Cold. Hollow. Like