Chapter 6 - The Long Darkness
By late February, the small world inside Apartment 3B began to crumble under the relentless weight of starvation and sickness.
The cough syrup Ethan brought home helped lower Sophie’s fever, but without proper food, heat, or sunlight, all four children were deteriorating rapidly.
Ben spent hours sitting by the window, staring out at the birds perched on the fire escape, his cheeks sunken, his eyes hollow. Lily’s vibrant spirit had faded into a quiet, haunting exhaustion. She spent her days sitting on the floor, holding Sophie in her lap, whispering songs to keep the little girl from crying when her stomach cramped from hunger.
Ethan was reaching his physical limit.
He was working six hours a day at Gorski’s market, but his muscles ached constantly. His shoes had holes in the soles, filled with wet, frozen newspaper to keep out the slush. His knuckles were cracked and bleeding, and he had lost at least fifteen pounds since November.
One evening, after feeding his siblings the last cup of boiled rice, Ethan sat down on the kitchen floor alone in the dark.
He pulled out the small wooden box where he kept their most precious possessions: a drawing Ben had made of a house with a yellow sun, a plastic pearl necklace Laura had left behind, and a photograph of the four of them taken two years ago at a park in Queens.
In the photo, Laura was smiling—a bright, beautiful smile that made her look like an angel. She had her arms wrapped around Ethan and Lily, while baby Sophie sat on her lap.
Why did you leave us, Mom? Ethan thought, a silent tear finally spilling over his eyelashes and tracking down his dirty cheek. What did we do wrong? Were we too loud? Did we take up too much space?
Suddenly, a strange smell filled the kitchen.
A sharp, sweet, chemical smell—like burning rubber or rotten eggs.
Ethan scrambled to his feet. He sniffed the air near the old gas stove.
The smell was coming from the floorboards near the heating pipe. The building’s ancient, neglected gas line had developed a slow, dangerous leak.
“Lily!” Ethan gasped, running into the living room. “Wake up! Get Ben and Sophie!”
“What is it, Ethan?” Lily asked, bleary-eyed as she sat up from the mattress.
“Gas leak,” Ethan barked, his voice sharp with terror. “We need to open the windows! Now!”
He rushed to the heavy wooden window frame in the living room and shoved upward with all his strength.
The window was frozen shut. Thick blue ice had sealed the wooden frame to the sill.
Ethan pounded his fists against the glass, trying to break the icy seal, but the window wouldn't budge. He ran to the kitchen window—frozen shut. He ran to the bedroom window—frozen shut.
The chemical gas smell was growing stronger by the second, making Ethan’s head spin and his stomach churn with sudden nausea.
“Ethan... I feel dizzy,” Ben whimpered from the mattress, his head rolling back onto the pillow.
Sophie began to cough—a harsh, wet, suffocating cough.
Ethan panicked. He grabbed an old iron skillet from the stove, ran to the living room window, and smashed the heavy iron against the glass pane.
CRASH!
Shards of glass exploded outward into the freezing night air. The cold wind rushed into the apartment, blowing away the thick, poisonous gas fumes, but bringing with it a blinding, swirling blizzard of snow.
Ethan stood in the middle of the ruined room, holding the iron skillet, his chest heaving, his hands covered in small glass cuts.
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Through the broken window, the icy New York wind howled like a choir of ghosts, blowing snow across the floorboards, settling over their thin blankets, their broken toys, and their hopeless shelter.
They had survived the gas leak. But now, they had no window. They had no heat. They had no food. And the winter was far from over.
