#Chapter 271: Into the Abyss

Olivia

The sun was setting, casting long, deep orange shadows across our humble abode.

I had been sitting at the kitchen table, textbooks sprawled before me, but my thoughts weren’t on the equations and sentences that blurred on the pages. They were with Mama, and the silence she left behind. The empty chair beside mine had only emphasized her absence.

It was just a few months after my mom had died of cancer. At the time, I thought that things couldn’t get any worse. Little did I know that my dad and I would be evicted from our pack just one year later.

The front door creaked open, and in walked my father, a silhouette of a man coated in a thick layer of soot.

His once bright blue overalls were now a dull shade of gray, bearing testimony to the long hours he had put in at the mines. His face, lined with the dirt and grime of the day’s work, was a stark contrast to his piercing blue eyes that shone with a mix of fatigue and determination.

Dropping his heavy tool bag with a thud, he m