THE MONSTER YOU MADE: EPISODE FOUR

Delilah no longer walked through the house. She glided like something that didn’t belong there anymore. And truly, she didn’t.She moved through the broken rooms and crumbling corners like a stranger, eyes scanning old walls not with nostalgia, but with detachment. As if she was looking at the remains of someone else’s nightmare.He noticed.She didn’t speak to him much. She didn’t need to.In silence, she brought him food he didn’t request. He turned on the radio just loud enough to drown out his thoughts. Rearranged the living room slowly, placing objects in unfamiliar places; his medicine, his slippers, even the small stool he always kept near the door.Each time he reached for something, it was gone.Each time he tried to ask her a question, she’d respond with something else.“Did you move my pills?”“How did you sleep last night?” she’d ask back, her voice soft, sweet, cruel.He would blink, frown, sit back.There were no outbursts. Not anymore.He couldn’t shout, because she didn’t argue. And he couldn’t hit her, not anymore, because now she was stronger, taller, quieter.He began to forget small things.One morning, he sat staring at a bowl of pap and akara for so long that it turned cold. She watched him from the kitchen doorway, arms folded, lips pressed together at the doorway.“You always liked it hot,” she said finally.He looked up, startled.“I—” he began, then stopped.That night, she crept into his room and replaced all the old light bulbs with warmer, dimmer ones, just enough to distort shadows. She moved the calendar on the wall back by a month. She unplugged the clock. Small things.But not small to a man losing grip on time.Days passed like that.She never raised her voice.She only watched. She only waited.Sometimes she sat in the hallway at night, her silhouette just barely visible through the crack in his door, not saying a word, not even moving. Just sitting, until he noticed.He would wake with a start, turn his head, and see her there, still, calm, watching.The first time it happened, he shouted.The second time, he stayed quiet, blinking in the dark.By the third, he didn’t bother anymore. He simply rolled over and pretended to sleep, heart pounding.Because now he was the one being watched.And she hadn’t touched him. Not once.Not yet.

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