I woke up at exactly 3:02 a.m. not from a dream, but from certainty.
Something was wrong.
It wasn’t loud. Just a soft, deliberate click—the sound of a door opening slowly, carefully, like someone trying not to be noticed. Most people would have slept through it. Mothers don’t.
My heart was racing before my thoughts caught up.
Lily’s door.
I stayed still for a split second, listening to the silence stretch too thin. Then came the faint sound of movement where it didn’t belong. I was out of bed immediately.
The hallway felt longer than it ever had. I didn’t turn on the lights. I didn’t speak. Some instinct told me to see first, to understand before the moment shattered.
Lily’s bedroom door was open.
Mark was inside.
He stood near her bed, frozen, half‑turned toward the door. The glow of the nightlight stretched his shadow across the wall. Lily was awake. Curled tightly into the corner of her mattress, blanket tangled around her legs.
Her face told me everything.
Tears ran silently down her cheeks. Her eyes locked onto mine with pure fear—not confusion, not sleepiness. Fear.
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