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The heavy weight in Ryland’s chest had been settling deeper with every tick of the classroom clock, but by the time the final parent-teacher conference wrapped up, it felt like an anchor. The manila envelope resting in his briefcase felt hot, almost radioactive. Eva Stratt. The name alone carried a terrifying, absolute authority. She was pulling him off his quiet, comfortable life of junior high science experiments and thrusting him directly into the center of the Petrova Task Force. An undisclosed location. No outside contact. Indefinite duration.
All he could think about during the long, dark drive home was you.
Ryland knew the intricate, fragile topography of your mind better than anyone. He knew how you struggled, how your mental health could suddenly wear you down until the world felt too heavy to navigate. More than that, he knew exactly how your anxiety mutated when it became too overwhelming to carry. When the panic scrambled your wires and you didn't know how to communicate what you were feeling, the words would stick in your throat, and that helplessness invariably turned into a sudden, sharp anger. It was a defense mechanism—a desperate flare gun fired into the dark. But the worst part was always the aftermath: the crushing, suffocating guilt that consumed you the moment the fire burned out. He wasn't just terrified of leaving you; he was terrified of what would happen to you if you had to face that vicious cycle entirely alone.
When he finally unlocked the front door, the house was warm, smelling of garlic and roasted vegetables. You had made dinner. You ate together at the small kitchen table, the yellow light casting a cozy glow over the space. Ryland tried his best to smile, to ask about your day, but his mind was a chaotic mess of orbital mechanics and sheer panic. Every time he opened his mouth to tell you, his throat locked up.
How do you tell the person who keeps you tethered to the earth that you’re being drafted into the very nightmare everyone is whispering about?
He couldn’t face it. Not yet.
So, they went to bed, the secret sitting like a ghost between them under the heavy quilts.
For Ryland, sleep was an impossibility. He stared at the ceiling, his mind racing through a hundred different scenarios, his chest tight with a restless, agonizing grief. He listened to the steady rhythm of your breathing, agonizing over the fact that this simple, beautiful sound might soon be stolen from him.
Around midnight, you stirred. The phantom weight of your own anxiety had woken you, leaving your throat dry and parched. Shifting out from under the blankets, you padded quietly down the hallway. First to the bathroom, splashing cool water on your face, and then into the dim, shadow-draped kitchen.
The house was completely still, save for the old, dust-coated radio on the counter. It was left on a low setting, a habit of yours to keep the house from feeling too terribly quiet, murmuring a faint, crackling melody into the dark.
You pulled open the refrigerator door, a harsh, stark white light flooding the kitchen, cutting through the shadows and illuminating the familiar space. You reached for the pitcher of cold water.
"Hey."
You gasped, flinching hard as a figure materialized from the darkness behind you. Your heart hammered against your ribs, a cold shock of adrenaline spiking through your veins.
"Jeez, Ryland," you breathed, pressing a hand to your chest, your voice thick with sleep and irritation. "You scared the shit out of me. What are you doing lurking in the dark?"
As the refrigerator light hit his face, your initial annoyance faltered into confusion. He looked entirely hollowed out. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and swimming with an intense, fragile panic. He didn't look like the cheerful, energetic teacher who gestured wildly with chalk; he looked small. Terrified.
"I’m sorry," Ryland whispered, his voice cracking slightly. He stepped closer into the pale light of the open fridge, his hands trembling as he reached out, though he didn't quite touch you. "I... I have to tell you something. I tried at dinner, but I couldn't."
You leaned back against the counter, crossing your arms. The sheer exhaustion of midnight, combined with the sudden, heavy seriousness of his tone, made a knot of tension tighten in your stomach. "Ryland, it’s the middle of the night. Can't this wait until morning? I’m exhausted."
"No, it can't," he said, the words tumbling out of him in a desperate, breathless rush. He swallowed hard, trying to steady his voice. "A woman came to see me today at the school. Her name is Eva Stratt. She’s... she’s running the entire response team for the astrophage problem."
Your heart did a sudden, violent drop. Everyone knew about the astrophage. It was the background radiation of everyone's daily terror, a nightmare you tried desperately not to think about just to keep your own mind from spiraling.
"Okay..." you said slowly, your voice narrowing with growing apprehension and confusion. "Why is a UN official coming to see a junior high school teacher about the astrophage, Ry? That doesn't make any sense."
"Because of my old papers on molecular biology," he explained, his hands gesturing faintly, a ghost of his usual teaching habit but entirely stripped of joy. "Before I quit research. Stratt... she has absolute authority right now. Unlimited resources. And she’s drafting me into the Petrova Task Force. I have to go with her to a research facility. I don't know where it is, and I... I won't have contact with the outside world. I don't know for how long."
The words hit you like a physical blow. No contact. Unknown location. Gone.
The sheer magnitude of the information—the realization that the global apocalypse was suddenly knocking on your specific front door—was too much for your tired, overwhelmed brain to process. The familiarity of your safe, quiet life was shattering right in front of you. A sickly wave of intense anxiety flooded your chest, hot and suffocating. As the panic rose, scrambling your thoughts, the inability to process the terror immediately triggered your defense mechanism. The fear hardened. It turned sharp, defensive, and biting.
"Are you serious right now?" you snapped, your voice cutting through the quiet kitchen, sharp and accusatory. "You’re standing here, at midnight, telling me you're just... leaving? To go play scientist for the government?"
"It’s not playing scientist!" Ryland’s voice rose, a defensive edge of his own breaking through his panic. "They are trying to stop an extinction-level event! If they don't find a way to understand the astrophage, everything dies."
"I know what the astrophage is, Ryland!" you yelled back, the volume of your voice scaling up rapidly as the walls of your reality closed in on you. "But you are a teacher! You teach twelve-year-olds! Why do you have to be the one to go? There are thousands of scientists out there who actually want to do this crap!"
"I don't have a choice!" Ryland’s voice finally cracked, rising to meet yours, his own desperation bleeding into the open air. "You think I want to go? I love my life here. I love teaching. I don't want to go to some top-secret base! But Stratt doesn't care what I want. If she says I go, I go."
"So you're just going to pack your bags and abandon me?!" you screamed, the tears finally springing to your eyes, hot and angry. "You’re just going to walk out that door and leave me here by myself?!"
The fight was fully escalating now, both of your voices echoing off the dark cabinets. The refrigerator door remained wide open, bathing you both in that stark, clinical, unforgiving white light, casting long, dramatic shadows against the walls while the radio continued its soft, indifferent hum in the background.
But beneath the anger, your heart was breaking. Because before Ryland, you had known a loneliness that tasted like ash. A deep, agonizing isolation where you felt entirely unseen and unsupported by the world while fighting your own internal battles.
He had been the one to pull you out of it.
He was your safety, your anchor, your home. The thought of being thrown back into that dark, hollow loneliness, especially with the world ending around you, made you want to claw your way out of your own skin.
You couldn't survive it again. You couldn't.
The sensory overload hit you all at once—the blinding white light of the fridge, the terrifying future, the suffocating fear of abandonment, and the relentless, quiet buzz of the background music. It was too much. Your brain short-circuited.
"Can this stupid radio please just shut up?!" you screamed, pressing the balls of your palms brutally against your forehead, your eyes squeezed shut as you tried to stop the world from spinning.
Ryland froze. Seeing you break down, seeing the sheer agony twisting your face, his own anger vanished instantly, replaced by a profound, aching sorrow. He didn't argue. He didn't yell back. He knew exactly what this anger was. He knew it was just fear.
Instead, he stepped forward, closing the distance between you. He gently but firmly took hold of your wrists, pulling your hands away from your face.
"No, let go of me," you sobbed, weakly trying to twist out of his grip, pushing your palms against his chest to keep him away. You didn't want him to see you like this. You wanted to push him away before he could leave you.
But Ryland was unyielding. He ignored your resistance, stepping completely into your space and wrapping his arms tightly around you, burying his face into your hair. He held you with a fierce, desperate strength, pinning your arms between your bodies, refusing to let you spiral out of reach.
"I've got you," he whispered fiercely, his own tears finally spilling over. "I've got you. I'm right here."
You fought him for two more seconds before the anger completely evaporated, leaving behind a vast, hollow devastation. Your fingers gripped the fabric of his t-shirt, bunching it in your fists as you buried your face into his chest, your body shaking with violent, ragged sobs. You wept for the loneliness that was coming, for the unfairness of the universe, for the terrifying burden placed on his shoulders.
On the counter, the old radio shifted tracks, the static clearing just enough for the melancholy, echoing harmonies of The Beach Boys' In My Room to drift into the kitchen.
There's a world where I can go and tell my secrets to...
Ryland swallowed hard, a watery, fragile breath escaping him. Slowly, without releasing his tight grip on you, he began to move. Standing in the stark, cold beam of the refrigerator light, he began to sway softly to the slow rhythm of the music. It was a gentle, deliberate motion. A rhythmic, rocking sway designed to ground you, to bring you back to earth.
For a long time, the only sounds were the soft oldies track, the hum of the fridge, and the gradual slowing of your breath. The rhythmic swaying worked like a balm against your frayed nerves. Slowly, the tight, agonizing knot in your chest began to loosen, leaving you completely exhausted, leaning all your weight into him.
Without a word, Ryland reached over and gently clicked the refrigerator door shut, plunging the kitchen back into the soft, dim shadows. Keeping one arm wrapped securely around your waist, he guided you slowly back down the hallway, away from the cold reality of the kitchen and back into the dark sanctuary of the bedroom.
He pulled you into the bed, drawing the heavy quilts up over your shoulders. He crawled in right behind you, pulling your back flush against his chest, wrapping his arms around you so tightly there was no room for the cold air to get between you. He pressed his lips to the crown of your head, then to your temple, over and over, a silent liturgy of devotion.
The silence in the room was heavy, thick with the unsaid.
The anger was gone, and right on schedule, the crushing weight of guilt took its place. You lay there in the dark, staring at the wall, your chest aching with regret.
How could you have snapped at him? How could you make his terrifying burden about your own selfishness? He was being forced to try and save the world, and you had yelled at him.
The guilt was a physical ache, making it hard to breathe, but you couldn't find the words to confess it. You just pressed your hand over his where it rested against your stomach.
Ryland felt the shift in your posture, the sudden stillness that meant you were drowning in your own thoughts. He knew. Even without a word spoken, he knew the guilt was eating you alive. He squeezed you tighter, resting his chin on your shoulder, letting his warm breath brush against your neck.
You swallowed past the lump in your throat. Your voice was barely a whisper when you broke the silence. "We can't go to sleep while we're in a fight, Ry."
It was your rule. The most important one you had.
"I know," he murmured softly into the dark.
"I'm sorry," you whispered, a tear escaping and soaking into the pillowcase. "I'm so sorry for snapping. I'm just... I'm so scared."
Ryland tightened his arms around you, his heart aching so violently it felt like it would break right there in the bed. "I'm sorry too. I'm sorry I yelled. And I'm sorry I have to go. I'm scared too. So scared."
He kissed your shoulder, holding you like you were the only thing keeping him tethered to the planet.
You didn't talk about Eva Stratt again that night. You didn't talk about the sun, or the logistics of how or when he would leave. The terrifying reality of the future was left untouched, hovering just outside the bedroom door, waiting for the morning light.
But for now, in the dark, you held onto each other in the quiet space between the storm and the departure, drifting into a heavy, fragile sleep, wrapped in the terrifying knowledge that time was already running out.