Reaping Glass

The rain had a smell like something opened. Like a wound unwrapped.

Metallic and green, as if the earth itself had split wide and let something decaying seep out. It threaded through the cracked kitchen window, clinging to the walls, the air, Marcus’s skin. Outside, thunder growled deep and slow, shaking the house in long, rattling exhalations. Each roll seemed to drag across the floor, settling into his bones.

He stood by the sink, unmoving, one hand resting on the counter, the other still curled around a chipped mug. The tea was still clinging to warmth, the steam long since fled. The power hadn’t gone out yet, but the lights flickered every time the storm hit just right—like the house itself was blinking, uncertain.

Behind him, he felt it—that distinct pressure of being watched. Like the air itself had shifted to accommodate another presence.

Marcus didn’t turn.

Instead, he said, almost absently, “You ever wonder why the animals came back wrong?”

A beat of silence followed. Not true silence—never that—but a hush. The kind that settles just before a storm turns violent.

Then a voice, soft and near, curled around his ear.

"Pet Sematary?"

"Mm."

“You think it’s because they were dead first?”

Marcus stared down into his tea, watching the surface shiver from some unseen tremor.

“No,” he murmured. “I think it’s because they weren’t meant to come back.”

“You think the soil was cursed?” the voice asked.

Marcus finally turned.

The kitchen was dim, caught in that flickering stutter between storm surges—lightning in the distance briefly silhouetted the room through the window. He could barely make out the shape standing there. The hum of the refrigerator was a low drone of wind threading through the siding.

His gaze swept across the counters, past the pile of unopened mail, the half-eaten apple browning on a plate. A single chair was tucked in at the table. The other sat pulled slightly out, as if someone had just stood up from it.

Theo was there.

Not standing. Not entering. Just... there, leaning against the far doorframe with his arms crossed, head tilted like he was still chewing on the question.

“I think the people were cursed,” Theo said, “for wanting more than they were allowed.”

The storm punctuated his words with a low snarl that rattled the glasses in the cupboard.

Marcus didn’t answer right away. He let his eyes track the shadow that pooled beneath Theo’s feet.

He turned back toward the sink.

“Wanting more isn’t a curse,” Marcus said quietly. “It’s human.”

Behind him, something rustled—a shift of fabric, maybe—but he didn’t look. Instead, he reached up and closed the window. The rain was louder now. Closer.

Theo’s voice was further away when it came again. “So’s bleeding. So’s breaking things.”

Marcus stiffened. His grip on the windowsill tightened.

“You say that like it means something,” he muttered.

There was no response.

He turned again, but Theo was gone.

Only the pulled-out chair remained. Empty.

Marcus exhaled slowly, pressing a hand to his temple. The house groaned around him, wind in the vents. The lights flickered again—and this time, didn’t recover. The kitchen fell into darkness, the faint outlines of the room defined only by the lightning’s slow, strobed approach.

He moved to the drawer by instinct, feeling his way along the counter.

When he struck a match, the flame hissed to life, sharp and orange. He lit the first candle. Then a second.

He eventually turned and moved toward the living room, candle in hand, the flame wavering slightly in the draft that seemed to come from nowhere. His footsteps muffled by the low growl of thunder outside.

The hallway opened into a modest, warmly lit space—if it could still be called that in the candlelight. The living room had a stillness to it, a hush that hadn’t been there earlier. Along the far wall, three doors stood side by side, spaced with symmetrical neatness. The one on the left led out to the apartment stairwell. The one in the center, the bedroom. The third, the bathroom.

A throw blanket lay folded over the arm of the couch. The scent of something faintly spiced still lingered in the air—remnants of cinnamon tea, maybe, or the ghost of a candle burned nights ago.

But it wasn’t empty.

Theo sat in the high-backed chair beside the coffee table, angled toward the couch. Several other candles glowed around him—one on the windowsill, another on the bookshelf, a cluster of three in a ceramic bowl. Their flames cast long, golden shadows up the walls, dancing in time with the storm's rhythm.

Marcus moved quietly to the couch and set his candle on the table. The flame bowed in the draft before straightening again, as if reluctant.

Theo didn’t speak. He simply watched Marcus settle, hands resting on his knees, shoulders tense beneath his shirt.

“I thought you’d left,” Marcus said finally.

“How could I,” Theo replied, tone almost conversational.

Thunder boomed outside, rattling the windows. Marcus nodded once, slow. “Right.”

Theo didn't say anything else. Instead, he rose—quietly, like mist—and stepped behind the chair.

Marcus didn't move.

He could hear the soft pad of Theo's footsteps on the rug, then the whisper of a hand dragging along the back of the couch. A brief pause behind him. Then the sound shifted—Theo was circling. Moving slowly, deliberately, around the far side, behind Marcus's line of sight. The air seemed to follow him, pulled in his wake.

When Theo's voice came again, it was from Marcus's left.

"You were never holding me," he said. "Just the shape I left behind."

Marcus stared straight ahead.

"Like Louis holding onto Gage," he said quietly. "Even after the trucks."

The light from the candle stretched toward the ceiling, swaying in time with the storm. The silence bent around it.

Theo didn't answer immediately. Just kept walking, until he appeared at the other end of the couch.

He paused, then finally sat down beside Marcus. The cushion gave only the slightest shift beneath him, but Marcus felt it. Like a weight on memory.

"The animals came back wrong because they were never supposed to come back at all," Theo said. "King knew that. That's why Church wasn't Church anymore."

Marcus leaned forward, elbows on his knees. His hands dangled between them, loosely clasped.

"But why make them cruel?" he asked. "Why not just... empty?"

"Because cruelty is what happens when you try to grip what's already gone," Theo replied. "You squeeze too hard, and what remains turns sharp."

Marcus ran a thumb over his knuckle—an old habit, tracing the scar there. The one from that night.

"Like glass," he murmured.

"The harder you squeeze, the deeper it cuts," Theo said. "Grief doesn't make things evil. It just makes them wrong."

The storm groaned in the walls. Marcus felt the weight of understanding settle between them—or maybe it was accusation.

"So when Louis brought back Gage..."

"He wasn't bringing back his son," Theo finished. "He was bringing back the part of himself that couldn't let go. His guilt, wearing Gage's face."

Marcus finally looked at him, but Theo's expression was unreadable in the candlelight. "You think that's what King was trying to say? That sometimes love becomes its own form of violence?"

"I think he was saying some things shouldn't be undone," Theo said, his voice barely above a whisper. "That when you break something precious... you can't just wish it back together."

"But people try anyway."

"People try anyway." Theo's eyes caught the candlelight strangely. "They bury their mistakes and hope they stay buried. But guilt has a way of digging itself back up."

Marcus stared down at his hands. At the faint stains on his fingers that soap could never quite wash clean. "And it comes back hungry."

"Hungry for what was taken from it," Theo said. "What do you think Louis really buried in that soil, Marcus?"

The question hung between them like smoke.

"His son," Marcus whispered.

"No." Theo leaned closer, and Marcus could smell something metallic on him—like rain, like copper. "He buried the moment he let Gage run into that road. He buried his failure. And when grief dug it back up..."

"It wasn't Gage anymore."

"It was everything Louis couldn't face. Wearing his son's face."

Marcus closed his eyes. "Pain reaping pain."

Theo’s voice grew softer, almost gentle. "Some people think the soil makes things evil. But I think... we bring our own poison. And when we try to bury it, it just grows stronger in the dark."

"Like what happened that night," Marcus said, so quietly it was almost lost in the storm.

"Like what happened that night," Theo agreed.

The candle flame wavered, casting Marcus’s shadow long across the wall. Outside, the thunder rolled on, relentless and patient, like something that had been waiting a very long time to be heard.

Theo’s gaze lingered on the candlelight, his voice barely audible beneath the storm.

“Some things, once broken, echo. Even in the quiet.”

Marcus didn’t answer. His jaw worked once, twice—like he was chewing something tasteless.

Then he stood.

The motion was slow, like gravity fought him for every inch. He crossed to the window and looked out. Rain crawled down the glass in crooked lines. The street beyond was slick and empty. No cars. No lights. Just the blur of water and the occasional flare of lightning.

He didn’t need to turn to know Theo had followed.

“You ever wonder,” Marcus said, “what it means to bury something properly?”

Theo said nothing, but Marcus could feel him there—his presence draped across the silence like a wet cloth.

“Not in dirt,” Marcus continued, voice rougher now. “Not in wood and stone. But really bury it. Deep enough that it stops breathing under your skin.”

Theo was closer. Marcus could sense it, but the air just felt cold against his spine.

“You can’t,” Theo said softly. “You can only pretend it doesn’t whisper when the lights go out.”

Marcus turned. His hand still rested on the windowsill, fingers trembling slightly. “Then what’s the point?”

“To remember,” Theo said. “To regret.”

Lightning split the sky, and, for a moment, the room flashed stark and white.

Then the dark returned.

Marcus stayed at the window long after the lightning faded, watching the storm drag itself across the sky. The wind had shifted; the rain now came at an angle, streaking the glass like claw marks.

Behind him, the living room had fallen silent again. No creak of cushions. No shift of breath. Just the low hum of absence.

He turned slowly, expecting the candlelight.

There was none.

Only the faintest outline of furniture met his eyes—the couch, the table, the chair Theo had been sitting in.