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