Chapter 1 - The Suburban MirageThe afternoon sun hung over Elm Street like a burning spotlight.
From a distance, the neighborhood looked like the kind of place people dreamed about when they imagined the perfect American life. White picket fences. Freshly trimmed lawns. Sprinklers ticking rhythmically across emerald grass. Children’s bicycles abandoned beside driveways. Mailboxes painted in cheerful colors.
Nothing appeared wrong.
But at the very end of the cul-de-sac stood an old pale-yellow house that seemed to have forgotten how to smile.
Its paint was peeling around the windows. The porch sagged slightly beneath years of neglect. Dead leaves collected in the corners, even though summer was at its peak.
And in the front yard sat something that did not belong in any respectable suburban neighborhood.
A massive iron cage.
The metal bars were orange with rust. The wooden floor inside was cracked and stained. The padlock hanging from the door was thick enough to secure a prison.
Inside that cage, an elderly woman sat motionless beneath the brutal afternoon heat.
Her name was Eleanor.
She had once been a woman who filled rooms with laughter.
Now she looked like someone the world had forgotten.
Her thin shoulders trembled as she stared toward the street.
She was waiting.
She didn't know for whom.
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She only knew that every morning she woke up, she prayed that someone would finally come.
Someone who remembered she was human.
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