The sudden darkness swallowed the basement whole, leaving only the faint sound of frightened breathing and sound of his boots shifting against the concrete. For a long, endless moment, he said nothing.

Then the flick of a lighter broke the silence. A small flame brightened the room, painting his face in orange and shadow. His eyes gleamed; wild, feverish, yet oddly calm. He lit a candle sitting on the workbench, then another, until a sickly glow filled the room. The shadows danced on the walls like spectators, restless, whispering, alive.

The boy chained to the wall whimpered again, his throat sore from muffled screams. The man turned toward him, tilting his head, twitching his neck. 

“Shhh… the dark makes people honest,” he muttered, almost lovingly. 

“Don’t waste your breath. Save it for when I really need to hear you.”

He set the knife down and picked up a rusted chain, running it through his fingers as though it were rosary beads. Each clink of metal against metal echoed, sharp and merciless. He stepped closer, wrapping a length of it around his hand. The boy’s eyes widened, his chest rising and falling in frantic, shallow rhymes.

“Do you know why you’re here?” he asked softly, kneeling before him. 

“Do you know why they always end up here?” His smile stretched wider, though it didn’t touch his eyes. 

“Because they look like him. My brother. Your face… It's his face. And every time I see it, I have to remember.”

He jerked the chain, tightening it against the boy’s wrist until the skin turned white. The boy tried to scream, but the rag swallowed the sound, turning it into a pitiful whine.

The man leaned in closer, so close his breath was hot against the boy’s ear. 

“But don’t worry. I’m not cruel.” He chuckled, the sound hollow, scary. 

“I’ll let you sing before I silence you. That way… the stars will hear you.”

He stood abruptly, his shadow stretching monstrous across the wall. From the table, he picked up a small dagger, its blade uneven, handmade, almost ceremonial. He traced it across his palm, letting a thin line of blood trail down.

The boy squirmed, rattling his chains desperately.

The man’s head twitched again, harder this time, his whole body jerking as though some unseen memory clawed at him. His face twisted with fury, then softened into something broken, childlike. He pressed the dagger against the boy’s chest, not deep just enough to feel the pulse hammering beneath.

“Sing with me,” he whispered, his voice trembling with something between madness and sorrow. “Twinkle… twinkle… little star…”

The boy shook violently, but the chains held him tight. His muffled sobs filled the gaps between the man’s words.

“…how I wonder… what you are…”

The candle flames flickered as though shivering in the airless room. His laughter broke through the song, jagged and manic, before he slammed the dagger into the wall just beside the boy’s head. The steel clanged, echoing in the small room.

He leaned back, eyes unfocused, staring at nothing. “Not yet,” he muttered to himself, twitching his neck again. “Not this one. Not yet.”

His hand lingered on the boy’s trembling shoulder.

Above, the house was silent. His mother’s footsteps were long gone.

And here, in the bowels of concrete and shadow, he whispered with a smile:

“You’ll be here until she returns.”