The house had been quiet before the fall.
The woman downstairs had been occupied with something ordinary enough that the sound from above initially produced confusion rather than fear. A cupboard door remained open behind her. Water continued running somewhere nearby. Whatever she had been holding had been abandoned the moment her second call received no response.
Her footsteps reached the landing.
"Are you all right?"
No answer.
She moved faster.
The hallway outside the bedroom filled with the sound of hurried bare feet. Her breathing had become audible by the time she reached the closed door.
She knocked once.
Not politely.
The strike rattled the handle.
"Open the door."
Silence.
Her hand closed around the handle.
The door swung inward.
The luxurious bedroom looked unchanged.
The blackout curtains remained closed apart from the thin seam of daylight between them. The television was dark. The monitors slept. The abandoned controller still lay beside the enormous bed with its cable trailing toward the wall.
For one brief second, the woman appeared not to understand what she was seeing.
Then her gaze dropped.
The teenage boy lay motionless on the floor between the wardrobe mirror and the bed.
One arm had fallen across his chest. Dark hair covered part of his face. His skin looked frighteningly pale against the black shirt, and his body had folded awkwardly where his legs had given way beneath him.
The woman's expression shattered.
A gasp tore through her.
Then a scream.
"My baby!"
She ran toward him.