By the fourth month, Leonardo wasn't a man anymore.
He was a twitching, hollowed-out thing haunted by shadows only he could see, jumping at whispers that didn't exist. The pills, the fire games, the sleepless nights I had eroded him down to something pitiful. Something soft. Something I could snap in half with a breath.
And still… he clung to me. Called me his only light.
That night, I led him to the cliffs.
I told him we'd start over. No more smoke. No more knives. Just air and stars and silence.
He believed me.
He turned his back to the world and stared out into the dark.
And that's when I drove the blade in slow, right between his ribs. I twisted it until I felt the snap of bone. He gasped wet and broken then crumpled at my feet like a puppet whose strings had finally rotted through.
He didn't scream.
He didn't fight.
He just whispered one word: "Fire."
I buried him in the rocks like trash and walked away, triumphant. I had torn him apart, broken his mind, and erased him from the earth.