The Curtain Moved, And Sid Was Waiting In The Warm Back Room

I left the curtain open.

It hung from one side of the doorway, twisted where my hand had pulled it aside, exposing the narrow space behind it to the room. The warm light reached only a little way inside. Beyond that, the darkness held its shape around Sid. I could see the outline of a shoulder, one bent knee, and the pale reflection of an eye when Sid looked toward me.

Closing the curtain would have been easy. I could have drawn it across, returned the room to its ordinary arrangement, and made the discovery look like something that had not happened. Instead, I kept one hand against the wall and lowered myself to the floor beside the opening.

Sid did not move.

I studied the space between us. There was not enough room to reach in without leaning across the threshold, and I did not want to crowd Sid. The floor pressed a hard line into my hip. Dust gathered along the baseboard. Somewhere near my knee, a loose thread from the curtain dragged back and forth whenever the air shifted.

The rest of the house waited behind me.

I could check the front room. I could look at the other doors, the windows, the places where someone might enter or return. I could find out whether we were alone. But leaving Sid, even for a minute, felt like repeating the same choice that had put Sid here. I had no proof that anyone was coming. I had no proof that no one was.

I looked toward the open room, then back into the hidden space.

Sid watched me make the decision.

I stayed.

For a while, the only sound was the low working hum of the house. A vent clicked and settled. Pipes gave a brief knock somewhere behind the wall. The light near the ceiling flickered once, not enough to go dark, but enough to make the curtain's shadow jump across the floor.

I reached for the nearest object inside the space, a small flat item partly covered by fabric. My fingers stopped before touching it. I did not know whether it belonged to Sid, whether it had been placed there as a warning, or whether it had simply been forgotten. I left it where it was.

Then my phone vibrated in my pocket.

The sound was small, but Sid's gaze shifted toward it immediately. I pulled the phone out and looked at the screen. There was no message I could make myself read. A reminder had appeared, tied to the house and to a time that was moving closer whether I acknowledged it or not. I had expected to handle it before then. Now the open entrance, Sid, and the room around us made the plan useless.

I turned the phone face down on the floor.

The vibration stopped. A few seconds later, it began again.

This time I silenced it without checking. My hand shook as I set the phone farther away. The screen continued to glow against the floorboards, bright enough to show the uneven edge of the baseboard and the dust caught beneath it.

A sound came from beyond the room.

Not a voice. Not yet.

It was a change in the house's silence: a faint movement near the outer part of the domestic space, followed by the soft scrape of something against a hard surface. I held still. Sid held still with me.

The open curtain moved once.

I could close it now. I could push it across and hide the gap before whoever was approaching reached the room. The fabric was already under my hand. All it would take was one pull.

Sid looked at me.