It began with a cough.

  Nothing alarming.

  Just once or twice in the evenings.

  His mother would turn her head slightly, covering her mouth with the back of her hand as she stirred thin porridge over the fire.

  “I’m fine,” she would say before anyone asked.

  His father didn’t look up.

  Work had been heavy that season. The quarry demanded longer hours. Stone dust clung to clothes, to hair, to lungs.

  Coughing was common in poor villages.

  No one feared it at first.

  Days passed.

  The cough did not leave.

  It deepened.

  Less like irritation.

  More like something scraping from inside her chest.

  At night, when she thought they were asleep, he heard it.

  A quiet, contained sound.

  As if she were trying not to wake them.

  He lay on his mat, eyes open in the dark.

  Listening.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Counting the pauses between each cough.

  Measuring something he did not understand.

  She grew thinner.

  Her wrists sharper.

  Her steps slower.

  Once, while lifting a bucket from the well, she had to stop midway.

  Just for a breath.

  But he saw it.

  The tremor.

  He stepped forward immediately.

  “I can carry it,” he said.

  She smiled.

  “You’re still small.”

  “I’m not.”

  She hesitated.

  Then let him take the bucket.

  It was heavier than he expected.

  Water sloshed over his feet.

  But he did not spill it again.

  That night, the cough lasted longer.

  His father finally noticed when she dropped a bowl.

  The sound of clay shattering felt louder than it should have.

  She stood there, staring at the pieces as if confused.

  Blood dotted the cloth she pressed to her lips.

  Too red.

  Too bright.

  His father’s jaw tightened.

  The next day, he left earlier than usual.

  Returned later.

  Empty-handed.

  “The healer says herbs,” he said flatly.

  “They cost silver.”

  There was no silver.

  Winter approached quietly.

  Cold crept into the hut through cracks in the walls.

  Her cough grew harsher in the cold air.

  Sometimes she couldn’t finish a sentence without stopping to breathe.

  He began waking before dawn.

  Gathering dry sticks.

  Fetching water before the other children arrived.

  He stopped playing near the well.

  Stopped watching the games.

  When Jun waved at him, he only nodded.

  His world shrank to the hut.

  To the sound of breathing at night.

  Sometimes shallow.

  Sometimes uneven.

  He counted.

  Always counting.

  One evening, he returned with a bundle of wild herbs he had seen older villagers collect before.

  “I found these,” he said.

  His father looked at them.

  Silence.

  “They might help.”

  His father nodded slowly.

  They boiled them anyway.

  The hut filled with bitter steam.

  She drank it without complaint.

  She always drank it.

  That night, her coughing fit did not stop for a long time.

  He sat upright in the dark.

  His small hands clenched in the blanket.

  He wanted to do something.

  Anything.

  But there was nothing to strike.

  No bully to confront.

  No choice to step into.

  Just weakness.

  Powerless.

  The word echoed in a place he did not know existed inside him.

  He pressed his forehead to the cold wall.

  And for the first time in this life—

  He whispered into the dark.

  “Please.”

  He did not know who he was speaking to.

  The rain did not answer.