The Basement That Devoured Years
The cellar had never been meant for living. Damp air. A single weak bulb. Rusted tools and broken boxes stacked in corners. The first time Elsbeth was sent down there, rain hammered against the house. Nicolas had left only two days earlier.
Sabine stood at the top of the stairs, her voice flat, eyes refusing to meet Elsbeth’s.
“Listen,” she said. “Your son isn’t here. I don’t want problems. You’ll stay down there. It’s quieter.”
Elsbeth believed it would be just one night.
She carried a thin blanket and an old chair down the steps. The door closed behind her. No one returned.
One night became a week. A week became a month. Months stretched into years.
For seven years, whenever Nicolas left for work, Sabine sent Elsbeth back downstairs. And whenever he returned, she brought her up again, washed her face, fixed her hair, and rehearsed the lie.
“If you say anything, no one will believe you,” Sabine would whisper. “He chose me. Not an old woman.”
Elsbeth stayed silent—not because she didn’t feel the cruelty, but because losing her son completely felt worse than the cold.
Upstairs, meals were warm and curtains open to the sun.
Downstairs, Elsbeth survived on scraps and silence.
She stopped counting days. Time became sound—footsteps above, the garbage truck passing, the heavy stillness before dawn. Her knees swelled. Her back bent further. Sometimes she talked to herself. Sometimes she sang softly into the darkness, the lullabies she once sang to Nicolas.
“Sleep now, my boy… Mum is here.”
