⛧ 𝑪𝒐𝒍𝒕 𝑭𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒕 ⇄ ◀ 𓊕 ▶ ↻

͙͘͡★  .　 ۫ ·     

      “𝘕𝘰, 𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘦. 𝘏𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵—! 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙛𝙪𝙘𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙢𝙪𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙢𝙮 𝙗𝙧𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧!”     

      ☄️     

      The voicemail waited for him like a sealed letter beneath the floorboards of a haunted house, untouched for two long years while Colt wandered through his own private ruin. In those days his phone had lain dark and disconnected, as broken and forsaken as the man himself. His frayed mind had taken the silence for abandonment, for had not every vanished hand in his life taught him that love was but another word for leaving?      

  
Then, one rain-soaked evening, he pressed play.      

      
Out of the hush came Ryland’s voice, faint as a prayer spoken in a crypt:      

      
“Colt, they want me to go to space to save the sun… but I’ll never make it back. I can’t do that. I can’t leave you. I can’t  face dying eleven light-years away. I love you— I’m coming back to you. I promise.”      

      
The message hung in the air like a fragile bridge between two worlds. It was not just a confession but a plea, an echo of love battling despair... and the desperate hope to return.      

      
It cut off so abruptly, and in the cavernous silence that followed—vast and reverberant as a cathedral’s nave—the weight of truth slowly took root within him, like black roses unfurling slowly, haunting and beautiful upon a long forgotten grave. Ryland had not abandoned him; he had not turned away. Even in the shadow cast by a dying star, the frigid expanse of the cosmos poised to claim him, his brother’s heart remained quietly, unshakably tethered to the one still anchored to Earth.      

      C̶o̶n̶t̶i̶n̶u̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶m̶e̶n̶t̶s̶