The crushing chill of his father's grip on his shoulder forced Wildan to back down. Retreating to his room under the guise of giving up, his mind raced furiously. Something was fundamentally wrong with this house. The tightness in his chest grew more persistent, followed by an oppressive wave of heat slowly radiating up through the concrete tiles.

If the front door was heavily guarded by his father, his only escape route was the back door leading out to the laundry area and the narrow neighborhood alley.

Wildan stripped off his plaid flannel shirt to keep his movements low-profile, left wearing only a white undershot singlet. Slipping out of his bedroom, he tiptoed quietly past the quiet central hallway toward the kitchen. Every step was as light as he could make it. Darting a wary glance into the living room, he saw his father still sitting there, staring down at his old newspaper in the exact same frozen posture, completely motionless like a statue.

Only a few meters left until the back door. Wildan could already see its rusted iron latch.

Yet just as his foot crossed the boundary dividing the living room and the kitchen, a small figure suddenly sprang out from behind the pantry divider.

THUD!

Wildan gasped in shock as a pair of thin arms suddenly wrapped tightly around his waist. The small body crashed into him from the front, hugging him with unnatural strength. A faint scent of traditional baby oil—a fragrance he hadn't caught in years—pricked at his nose.

"Don't go... Big Brother," a familiar, raspy voice whispered.

Wildan looked down. It was Rian, his younger brother who had just turned twelve.

The boy was normally fiercely independent. Day in and day out, Rian was the typical modern teenager who locked himself in his room, drowning in mobile games, emerging only when he was hungry or needed allowance money. Let alone hugging Wildan, simply greeting his older brother when they crossed paths was a rare occurrence. The two of them constantly bickered because Wildan's short temper often led him to forcibly steal Rian's charger protectors.

Yet now, Rian hugged him tightly, as though terrified of losing Wildan forever. And what made the hairs on the back of Wildan's neck stand up all over again: Rian's body felt impossibly cold, trembling violently inside his embrace.

"Rian? What's wrong with you?" Wildan tried to pry his brother's arms away, but the boy's grip was terrifyingly strong. "Where's your phone? Aren't you supposed to be gaming?"

Rian tilted his head up. His innocent face looked deathly pale. Deep, dark shadows bruised the skin beneath his heavy, drooping eyes. Yet the strangest thing was his left hand. The boy wasn't holding a phone; instead, he clutched a thin, dog-eared fable storybook with frayed, torn corners.

It was a storybook about the Clever Mousedeer and the Bull—a cheap book their father had bought them at a night market a decade ago, back before their family had shattered into pieces. A book that should have been lost or burned years ago.

"I don't want to play on the phone, Big Brother. It's dead," Rian said, his voice raw, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears as he looked up at Wildan. "Where are you going, Big Brother? Going out to wander around again? Going to get drunk?"

Wildan froze.

His brother's words struck squarely in the pit of his stomach. A fresh wave of guilt surged through him.

"Brother... Brother's just looking for some fresh air out back, Rian. It's so hot inside the house. Can't you feel it?"

Rian shook his head rapidly. Tears began to track down his freezing cheeks. "It's hotter outside, Big Brother. Outside is terrifying. Don't go out. Just stay in the house with Rian."

"Rian, listen to Brother—"

"Big Brother, please read this to me," Rian interrupted suddenly, shoving the tattered storybook against Wildan's chest with trembling hands. "It's been so long since Big Brother read me a bedtime story. Rian missed it..."

Wildan's throat suddenly tightened. His memories were violently dragged backward. Once upon a time, before Wildan transformed into a frustrated, delinquent youth, he had been a good big brother. He used to pull Rian onto his lap on the mattress, reading him this cheap little storybook until his little brother drifted off to sleep while Mom and Dad smiled watching them from the doorway.

When had all that warmth vanished? When had he begun turning into a selfish monster who only knew how to curse this house?

"Rian... Brother has to go out for just a minute," Wildan coaxed, trying to hold onto the remnants of his logic, which was beginning to fray under the emotional assault.

"Just a minute, Big Brother! Just one story!" Rian pleaded, his voice rising an octave, thick with desperation. "After that, if Big Brother still wants to go out, Rian won't stop you. Please, Big Brother... for Rian's sake."

Wildan stared into his brother's wet eyes. Inside a house wrapped in a dead silence cut off from the outside world, Rian's weeping sounded heartbreakingly fragile. An older brother's instinct overrode his suspicions. Wildan let out a defeated sigh, his shoulders slumping.

"Fine. Just one story, okay? After that, Brother is heading out back," Wildan finally conceded.

Rian broke into a wide smile instantly. It was an intensely sweet, childish grin, yet it looked deeply unsettling because his lips were tinged a pale, bluish purple.

The two of them sat down together on the kitchen's concrete floor. Wildan leaned back against the pantry, while Rian rested his head directly on Wildan's lap—a pampered posture he hadn't taken in years. The moment Rian's head touched his lap, an intense, glacial cold bled straight through Wildan's jeans.

A bone-freezing cold that stiffened his muscles.

Wildan flipped open the first yellowed page of the storybook. Strangely enough, the paper felt exceptionally brittle and dry, like compacted sheets of ash.

"Ahem..." Wildan cleared his throat, trying to break the awkward tension. "Once upon a time, in a very dense forest, a clever mousedeer was taking a stroll by the river..."

Wildan began to read.

His voice echoed through the stuffy kitchen. Every time Wildan finished a sentence, Rian would chime in enthusiastically.

"And then, did the mousedeer meet the bull, Big Brother?" Rian asked, his eyes closed as he enjoyed the soothing movement of Wildan's hand running through his hair.

"Yeah, the mousedeer met a bull who was huge but easily tricked," Wildan replied with a faint smile.

"Is the bull like Big Brother? Big, but always getting tricked by his bad friends outside?" Rian asked innocently, though the sentence felt like a direct slap to Wildan's face.

Wildan fell silent for a moment, then gently ruffled his brother's hair. "Yeah, Brother is pretty stupid. So don't be like Brother, okay? You have to study hard."

"Rian can't study anymore, Big Brother..." Rian whispered softly.

Wildan stopped reading. "What do you mean?"

Rian opened his eyes, staring straight up at the dark kitchen ceiling. "It's nothing. Keep going, Big Brother. Rian wants to hear it to the end."

Wildan resumed reading with a growing sense of unease. The acrid smell of burning grew thicker around them, mingling with the faint sound of splintering wood coming from overhead, as though something unimaginably heavy was pressing down on their roof from the outside. Yet Rian remained completely calm across his lap, acting as though the fairytale world inside those pages was the only real thing left in existence.

Unbeknownst to Wildan, every single line of the story he read aloud was his family's desperate way of buying time. Holding back his footsteps so he would stay anchored at the safest point in the house, keeping him far away from the raging death burning just beyond their walls.