Ikaris woke with the distinct impression that something was wrong with the world.
Not wrong in any particularly identifiable manner, which would have been preferable, but wrong in the irritating, almost insulting sense that everything appeared to be functioning precisely as it should while some inexplicable part of him insisted that it was not.
It was the rough, imprecise anger of stubbing your toe on a door frame, then wishing—with every ounce of your being—it could be dealt pain in return. Pain was also a price of satisfaction in retaliation.
The sunlight was too bright.
The sheets were too warm.
And the birds outside his window seemed too loud, while on any other day, it would be a sound of beauty and nature.
He opened his eyes.
Stared at the ceiling.
And wished, with a sincerity that surprised even him, that something would kill the birds.
Not because they had done anything particularly offensive beyond existing, but because the thought of their sudden silence brought him a momentary satisfaction he could not otherwise explain.
A twist—something inside of him was churning.
He frowned.
That was unusual.
He rarely woke in a pleasant mood, admittedly, but irritation generally required a cause, and Ikaris had always considered himself sufficiently rational to distinguish between genuine inconvenience and the ordinary discomfort of being alive.
This morning, however, he disliked everything.
He disliked the curtains.
He disliked the warmth of the room.
He particularly disliked the faint smell of breakfast drifting upward from the kitchen, though he had eaten the same food countless times without complaint.
He sat upright.
Something was missing.
The sensation lasted less than a second; then it disappeared.
Ikaris rubbed his face and glanced toward the clock.
Seven seventeen.
School began in less than an hour.
He could attend.
There was no physical reason he could not, and his attendance had been sufficiently consistent that missing a day would undoubtedly invite questions.
But the thought of sitting in a classroom, listening to people speak, and pretending their concerns possessed even the slightest relevance to his existence filled him with an irrational hostility.
He reached for his phone.
A message from Keith. Bowling Friday? Sarah says she's going to destroy us.
Ikaris stared at the screen.
Then turned it facedown.
He had no desire to answer.
A few minutes later, another message arrived.
Bella. Good morning. Did you get home okay?
He read it twice.
The words were harmless.
Considerate, even.
Yet something about them irritated him more than Keith's invitation.
Of course I got home. He almost typed the response.
Instead, he switched off the phone. And lay back down.
By noon, he had decided not to attend school.
By two, he had decided that speaking to anyone would be an unnecessary burden.
And by four, he had begun humming.
He did not notice it at first.
The melody emerged while he was standing beside his bedroom window, watching a delivery truck reverse into a driveway across the street, and continued as he crossed the room to retrieve a book he had no intention of reading.
It was a gentle melody.
Soft.
Almost mournful.
And strangely familiar.
He stopped.
The silence that followed felt unpleasant. He hummed again.
Relief came immediately.
Ikaris frowned. What is this?
He attempted to remember where he had heard it. Nothing.
He tried following the melody backward, searching for the opening notes, but each time he reached a particular passage, his thoughts seemed to drift away from the question.
It was irritating.
He sat at his desk, opened a notebook, and began writing down the words that surfaced alongside the tune.
A phrase. Then another. Some were incomplete.
Others seemed to belong to sentences whose beginnings he could not remember.
He crossed them out, rewrote them, and began again.
The process occupied nearly three hours.
When he finally stopped, the page contained a collection of fragments arranged beneath a title he did not remember writing.
My Love.
He stared.
Then slowly closed the notebook.
Something in his chest tightened.
Not pain. Not precisely. More like longing.
He disliked that too—a feeling of lingering, as if he couldn't keep his emotions as tightly constrained as it needed to be.
Downstairs, a floorboard creaked.
The old woman was moving through the house.
He heard the faint sound of dishes being arranged in the kitchen, followed by the slow, deliberate movement of someone whose body had grown less cooperative with age.
Ordinarily, he would have gone down to help.
Today, he remained seated.
He could not explain why the thought of seeing her made him uncomfortable.
He could barely remember speaking to her the previous evening, though he assumed he must have done so.
He remembered returning home.
Turning on the living room light.
And then—
He was in bed.
Nothing unusual about that.
He had been tired.
People forgot unimportant details all the time.
Yet the melody continued circling through his thoughts, refusing to settle, and he found himself increasingly convinced that if he could only complete the words, some invisible pressure inside him would finally disappear.
He opened the notebook again.
And continued writing.
The second day was worse.
Ikaris woke after nearly ten hours of uninterrupted sleep and felt as though he had not rested at all.
His phone contained several messages.
Keith had asked whether he was sick.
Sarah wanted to know if he had been arrested.
Bella had sent three messages, each progressively more concerned. Are you okay?You weren't at school today. You don't have to answer right away. I just wanted to make sure you're alright.
He examined the last message.
Something unpleasant stirred beneath his ribs.
She was worried.
He knew that.
And he knew, with equal certainty, that he should answer.
A simple response would be sufficient. I'm fine.
Two words.
An insignificant expenditure of effort.
Yet he could not bring himself to type them.
Instead, he imagined her reading the message, smiling with relief, and returning to whatever ordinary activities occupied her day.
The image made him angry.
He did not understand why.
Perhaps because she expected him to reassure her.
Perhaps because she had somehow acquired the right to worry about him without ever asking permission.
Or perhaps because he had begun anticipating her messages, and the discovery that another person's attention could influence his mood offended him more deeply than he cared to admit.
He switched off the phone.
Again.
The melody returned.
By evening, he had filled six pages with variations of the same incomplete song.
He hummed while eating. He hummed while reading. He hummed while standing in the bathroom, examining his reflection with an expression of growing dissatisfaction.
At one point, he attempted to stop deliberately.
He held his breath. Counted to thirty. And waited.
The silence became unbearable.
Not frightening. Merely wrong.
As though he had interrupted something that needed to continue.
He began humming again. His shoulders relaxed.
Ikaris stared at himself. "Ridiculous."
The reflection offered no disagreement.
On the third morning, he attended therapy.
Dr. Miriam Vale had been treating Ikaris for nearly two years, long enough to recognize the difference between his ordinary reluctance to discuss himself and the more deliberate resistance that appeared whenever he believed a conversation was approaching something he did not wish to examine.
She was a woman in her early forties, with dark hair usually gathered into a loose bun, thin-framed glasses, and a manner of speaking that rarely changed regardless of how unpleasant her patients became.
Her office was arranged with deliberate simplicity.
Two armchairs.
A small table.
A bookshelf.
A box of tissues positioned within reach of either seat.
There were no motivational posters, no inspirational quotations, and none of the decorative attempts at comfort Ikaris had encountered in other therapeutic settings.
He appreciated that.
Dr. Vale had once explained that she preferred a room in which people could decide for themselves how they felt, rather than one that instructed them to be hopeful before they had even sat down.
Today, however, he found the room intolerable.
"Good morning, Ikaris."
He sat. "Doctor." The way he said it—with grit and grime.
She glanced at the notebook resting on her lap. "You missed school on Monday and Tuesday."
"School missed me." He corrected, hastily and unordinary unrestrained with the arrogance embedded in his bones, in his every movement, that he deliberately tried to remain ignorant to.
"Was there a particular reason?"
"No."
She waited.
He looked toward the window.
"Would you like to tell me what those two days were like?"
"Unproductive."
"In what way?"
"I accomplished very little."
"That sounds frustrating."
"It was."
She nodded. "Did you feel physically unwell?"
"No."
"Did something happen over the weekend?"
"Not that I recall."
The answer came easily.
Too easily.
Dr. Vale noticed. "How have you been sleeping?"
"Well."
"Any nightmares?"
"None."
"That's a significant change from what you've described in previous sessions."
"I am aware."
"How do you feel about it?"
He turned toward her. "Relieved. I would have thought that obvious."
She accepted the answer without reacting to his tone.
"Sometimes a positive change can feel unfamiliar, especially when someone has lived with distressing symptoms for a long time. I'm interested in whether anything else has changed alongside your sleep."
Ikaris considered the question.
Then shrugged. "I've been spending more time with people."
"Keith and Sarah?"
"Among others."
"Isabella?"
His jaw tightened.
Dr. Vale noticed that too. "Did I say something upsetting?"
"No."
"You seemed uncomfortable when I mentioned her."
"There are times when even doctors should be careful."
It was not what he said as much as the way he said, staring into her eyes with a clarity that bordered on an absolute phenomenon like thunder after lightning.
She remained quiet for a moment, aware this was not the Ikaris of yesterday, and would certainly not be the Ikaris of tomorrow. This happened every-so-often, on the edge of a breakthrough with a patient, where they reverted to their worse selves.
Trying to find the parts of themselves which no longer worked.
But even as she knew this, a nervousness blossomed in Dr. Vale's heart; Ikaris was not your average patient, and sometimes, that scared her more than she dared to admit.
Thus, she backtracked. "That's fair. I may have read too much into it. What I do know is that you've been less interested in talking today, and you sound more irritated than usual. Have you noticed that yourself?"
He stared at her.
Then looked away. "Yes."
"Do you know what might be contributing to it?"
"No."
"That uncertainty can be difficult."
"I am not uncertain about being irritated, Doctor. I am uncertain about why."
"Thank you for clarifying."
He folded his arms.
She allowed several seconds to pass. "Have you been taking your medication as prescribed?"
"Yes."
"Any missed doses?"
"No."
"Any periods of time you can't account for?"
Ikaris looked at her.
The question should have been ordinary.
It was not.
He thought of the previous night.
The old woman.
The light.
Then nothing.
"No."
Dr. Vale studied him. "All right. I'd also like us to revisit something from your childhood, if you're willing."
His expression changed. "What?"
"The incident involving another child at the orphanage. You mentioned it briefly several months ago, but we didn't explore it."
"I remember."
"Would it be all right if we talked about what happened?"
"No."
She nodded. "We don't have to."
He looked at her suspiciously. "Then why bring it up?"
"Because you've described finding it difficult to trust people, and that experience may be relevant. But I don't want to push you into discussing something before you're ready."
Ikaris looked toward the bookshelf.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then—
"Her name was Eleanor."
Dr. Vale remained still. "Tell me about Eleanor."
Eleanor Whitmore had been nine years old when Ikaris first met her.
She was a small girl with neatly braided hair, expensive shoes, and a habit of apologizing whenever someone looked at her for longer than a few seconds.
Her parents were wealthy.
Or at least they appeared wealthy.
They drove an expensive car, wore carefully maintained clothing, and spoke with the peculiar confidence of people who believed that possessing money made their opinions inherently more valuable.
But Ikaris had noticed things.
The way Eleanor's mother examined prices before purchasing anything.
The way her father spoke too loudly about business opportunities.
The way Eleanor's lunches became smaller whenever the family appeared particularly eager to impress someone.
It was an elaborate performance.
And even as a child, Ikaris understood that appearances could become more important to people than comfort.
Eleanor was hungry.
Frequently.
The orphanage occasionally provided meals for children participating in community programs, and Eleanor attended one of those programs several afternoons each week.
She would sit beside Ikaris, carefully dividing whatever food she had brought from home into portions so small that he found the effort almost offensive.
One afternoon, he watched her stare at the remaining beef on his plate.
"Do you want some?"
She shook her head.
"No."
"You're looking at it."
"I'm not."
"Then you're remarkably interested in the plate."
She flushed.
He pushed a piece toward her. "Take it."
"I can't."
"Why?"
"Because I already ate."
He examined her lunchbox.
An apple.
Half a sandwich.
Nothing else.
"You're still hungry."
She looked away. "My mother says I eat enough."
"Your mother isn't here."
Eleanor said nothing.
Ikaris considered her for a moment.
Then stood. "Wait."
He approached the serving counter, where Mrs. Doreen Pike, one of the kitchen supervisors, was cleaning a large metal tray.
"May I have another piece of beef?"
She frowned. "You've already had your portion."
"I know."
"Then sit down."
"I'm still hungry."
Mrs. Pike examined him.
He met her gaze without embarrassment.
Finally, she sighed, retrieved a small piece from the remaining tray, and placed it on his plate. "Don't make a habit of it."
"I'll try not to."
He returned to Eleanor.
Placed the beef beside her sandwich.
And sat down.
She stared. "You lied."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you wouldn't ask."
She looked frightened. "What if they find out?"
"Then they'll tell me not to do it again."
"You'll get in trouble."
"Possibly."
"Why would you do that?"
Ikaris examined her with the peculiar seriousness he had possessed even as a child. "Because if you ask for more food, people might wonder why your parents aren't feeding you enough. Your parents care a great deal about what people think of them, and you care about what your parents think of you. I don't have parents to embarrass, Eleanor. People already expect me to beg."
She stared at him.
He pushed the plate closer. "Eat."
For a moment, she looked as though she might cry.
Then she picked up the beef.
And ate.
Dr. Vale listened without interrupting.
Ikaris spoke evenly, describing the arrangement with the detached precision of someone explaining a problem he had solved years earlier.
"It continued for several weeks," he said. "Sometimes I requested additional food. Sometimes I took it when the staff weren't watching. Eleanor also began bringing snacks home in her bag, though she rarely ate them in front of anyone."
"Did you know why she was keeping them?"
"She was afraid there wouldn't be enough later."
"That sounds like a difficult situation for both of you."
"It was manageable."
"Until something changed?"
Ikaris looked at her. His expression became very still. "Yes."
"What happened?"
He was quiet for a long moment.
Then he spoke. "Mrs. Pike counted the portions."
It had been a Thursday.
Ikaris remembered that clearly.
The kitchen smelled of boiled vegetables and cleaning chemicals, and rain had been falling against the windows since early morning.
Eleanor was sitting near the back of the dining hall.
She had not eaten breakfast.
He knew because she had told him.
Her parents had argued the previous night, and her mother had forgotten to prepare anything before leaving for work.
Ikaris took an additional piece of beef.
Then another.
The second was a mistake.
He knew it almost immediately.
Mrs. Pike turned.
Saw his plate.
And demanded to know where the extra portions had come from.
He answered. "I took them."
"Why?"
"I was hungry."
"You've already eaten."
"Yes."
"Then why did you take more?"
He said nothing.
Mrs. Pike looked toward the other children.
Then toward Eleanor.
Something in her expression changed.
"Eleanor, come here."
The girl froze.
Ikaris felt his stomach tighten.
"She hasn't done anything," he said.
Mrs. Pike ignored him.
"Eleanor."
The girl approached slowly.
"Has Ikaris been taking extra food for you?"
Silence.
Ikaris looked at her.
Eleanor looked back.
Her eyes were wide.
Frightened.
He understood the fear.
He even understood what she might do because of it.
But some part of him still expected her to tell the truth.
"No," she whispered.
Mrs. Pike frowned.
"Are you certain?"
Eleanor nodded.
Then pointed toward him.
"He keeps taking food. I told him he shouldn't."
The words were quiet.
Almost apologetic.
But they struck him with an unfamiliar force.
Ikaris stared.
She would not look at him.
"He said nobody would notice," she continued.
He felt something inside him become cold. Not because she had lied. He had lied countless times. But because she had taken the one thing he had done for her and transformed it into evidence against him.
He had protected her.
And she had made him the problem.
"Her parents were called," Ikaris said.
Dr. Vale nodded.
"What happened when they arrived?"
He looked down at his hands.
For the first time that morning, his voice lost some of its certainty.
"Her mother slapped me."
Dr. Vale's expression softened.
"I'm sorry that happened to you."
He gave a short, humorless laugh. "She was wearing a cream-colored coat. Expensive fabric. Gold buttons. I remember thinking she was going to stain the sleeve when she struck me."
"Do you remember what you felt?"
"Pain."
"Physically, yes. What about emotionally?"
He looked at her sharply.'"Does it matter?"
"It matters if it matters to you."
He stared.
Then looked away.
"She called me a thief."
Dr. Vale waited.
"She said children like me were the reason respectable families shouldn't involve themselves with orphanages. That we were dishonest, ungrateful, and incapable of understanding the value of generosity."
His jaw tightened.
"Eleanor stood beside her. She had a bag over her shoulder. There were three packets of crackers and two chocolate bars inside it. I knew because I'd watched her put them there."
"Did you tell anyone?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Ikaris swallowed. "I don't know."
He looked genuinely disturbed by the admission.
"I should have demanded they search her bag. It would have demonstrated that she was taking food home, that she wasn't being fed properly, and that I had been telling the truth about why I took the beef. The evidence was right there."
"Perhaps you were frightened."
"No."
"Perhaps you were shocked."
He said nothing.
Dr. Vale leaned forward slightly. "You were a child who had just been struck by an adult and accused of something you were trying to prevent. It's understandable that you didn't respond the way you might have wanted to."
Ikaris stared at her. "I was stupid."
"You were nine."
"I knew what was happening."
"Understanding a situation doesn't mean you have the power to control it."
"I could have spoken."
"Maybe. But being overwhelmed isn't a failure."
He looked away.
His breathing had changed.
Dr. Vale noticed.
"Can we slow down for a moment? I want to check how you're feeling right now."
He ignored the question. "I cried."
The words emerged almost violently.
"I stood there, and I cried. In front of everyone. The children, the staff, her parents. I couldn't stop." His hands tightened around the arms of the chair. "I had spent years learning not to do that. Crying never improved anything. It only encouraged people to believe they could hurt you without consequences."
Dr. Vale spoke quietly.
"That sounds like a very lonely lesson for a child to learn."
He looked at her. Something in his expression twisted. "Don't."
She paused. "Don't what?"
"Don't speak to me as though you've discovered something profound. I know what happened. I was there."
"I believe you."
"No, you don't. You sit there and rearrange everything into language that makes it easier to tolerate. Abuse becomes trauma. Betrayal becomes a response to fear. And a child who was humiliated in front of an entire room becomes someone who was merely overwhelmed."
"I don't want to minimize what happened."
"Then stop trying to make it acceptable."
Dr. Vale remained composed, though her expression had grown more serious.
"You're right that what happened wasn't acceptable. You were hurt by adults who should have protected you, and someone you cared about denied what you had done for her. I am not asking you to excuse any of them."
Ikaris leaned forward. "Then what are you asking?"
"I'm asking whether you can consider that the boy who cried wasn't weak."
He stared.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Ikaris smiled.
It was a terrible expression.
Not because it was particularly dramatic, but because it contained no warmth whatsoever. "Do you know what happened to Eleanor?"
Dr. Vale hesitated. "No."
"Her parents eventually lost their house. Their finances collapsed, just as I suspected they would. She stopped attending the program, and I never saw her again." He tilted his head. "Sometimes, I imagine the bills she brought in her bag, naïve girl she was, saw her name on it one morning as the mail was deposited into the mail box. She brought it to the orphanage—as soon as I saw it, I knew her parents have been opening accounts in her name. That's a crime. And what could a hurt boy do with that knowledge? Destroy their fabricated lives?" Something twisted churned in his gut and on his face. "Sometimes, I imagine meeting her again… asking if she knew the consequences of—"
"IKARIS!" Dr. Vale interrupted, placing her hand on top of his—hands that were already reaching for a box cutter she had forgotten to put away.
He snapped out of it as if in a trance.
"Are you okay?"
He nodded.
Dr. Vale nodded slowly in return.
"Do you ever imagine physically hurting Eleanor if you were to see her again?"
Ikaris looked at her. "Sometimes."
"Have you made any plans to find or hurt her?"
"No."
"Do you want to act on those thoughts?"
He considered that more carefully. "No. I want the memory to stop making me feel like a fool."
"That's important. We can work with that feeling without putting anyone in danger."
Something in his face hardened. "Work with it?"
"Yes."
"By doing what? Asking me to forgive her?"
"No. Forgiveness isn't a requirement of treatment."
"Then perhaps you should stop talking about her."
"We can stop."
But the words came too late.
The anger had already found somewhere to go.
Ikaris stood.
Dr. Vale remained seated.
"Ikaris, I can see that this has become overwhelming. We don't need to continue discussing Eleanor today."
He looked at her with open contempt. "You should have left it alone."
"I hear that you're angry with me."
"Then your hearing is functioning."
He turned toward the door.
"Before you go, I'd like to know whether you feel able to keep yourself and others safe."
He stopped.
Slowly turned.
And smiled again.
"Doctor, if I intended to hurt someone, do you genuinely believe asking me would prevent it?"
Dr. Vale met his gaze. "No. Asking doesn't prevent harm by itself. It helps me understand what you're experiencing so we can decide what support is needed."
He watched her.
Then said, very quietly, "You should be more careful about what you ask people to remember."
He left.
The door struck the frame hard enough to make the bookshelf tremble.
The stairwell smelled of disinfectant.
Ikaris descended quickly, one hand sliding along the railing, his thoughts moving with an intensity that made it difficult to distinguish one from another.
He was angry.
Furious.
And the worst part was that he could not identify precisely whom he wanted to hurt.
Eleanor.
Her mother.
Mrs. Pike.
Dr. Vale.
Himself.
All of them seemed equally deserving for reasons that changed with every step.