Third Person POV
The back door groaned when she opened it.
She knew every sound this door made. She had been opening it since she was small enough to need a stool to reach the latch, and over the years she had learned all its moods.
The particular creak when you rushed it. The low complaint when the wood was wet. The way the third floorboard inside liked to announce itself if you forgot to step over it.
Tonight she let it do whatever it wanted.
The groan curled into the kitchen and died.
The room beyond was almost completely dark. The hearth had finished its last log hours ago and what remained were embers, dull and red, pulsing like something that had not yet decided to give up entirely.
The air smelled like dried rosemary and old smoke. Underneath that, something else. Something cold in the specific way metal was cold, the kind of cold that arrived before something happened.
Sonita stepped inside.
