The house was too quiet.
No one came by after the accident. The grill explosion. Leah's death.
Cole had vanished inside his home, turned off his phone, and locked the doors.
Now, hours later, he sat curled in his bathtub, steam clinging to the walls. The water was scalding hot, but he barely felt it. His skin was red. His eyes were hollow.
He was talking to himself.
"I should've known. I should've seen it. Mark told us it was a pattern. He died for it. And she still—"
His voice cracked.
"She still died. And I'm still here."
Water sloshed as he shifted, laying down in the tub, face turned upward, then rolling gently until his head dipped beneath the surface.
Silence.
The bathroom light flickered.
The ceiling above him groaned—a low, wooden creak, like something shifting.
He didn't notice. Or didn't care.
The Setup
The water heater in the attic, ancient and neglected, had been leaking for months. With the temperature cranked up high tonight—out of habit or pain—the pressure built inside it like a ticking bomb.
Water dripped. Boards swelled. Screws loosened.
Then—
CRACK.
A groan from above. A shadow.
Then a sudden, deafening collapse.
BOOM.
The Trap
The ceiling over the bathtub gave way, and the old water heater came crashing down—insulation, boards, and plaster falling with it.
Cole shot upright as debris struck his chest and shoulders.
The metal drum slammed down into the tub, pinning him, trapping him.
Water rushed around him. His head was forced back beneath the surface.
He fought—thrashed—his arms scraping against wet porcelain and shattered tile. But the weight above him was immense.
He tried to scream. Water filled his mouth.
His fingers reached for the surface, trembling... then slowed... then stilled.
The light above flickered one last time and went dark.
And in the silence of that bathroom, beneath the wreckage and rising water, the last breath of Cole slipped away—swallowed by steam and sorrow.
Another link in the chain had snapped.
Another piece of the pattern had played its part.
And somewhere, in the invisible clockwork of Death's design, the gears turned again.