Chapter 1: The Unconditional Vow

This is the story of how a family was built on unconditional empathy, and how it was destroyed.

It wasn't a sudden destruction, like a lightning strike splitting an ancient oak. No, it was a slow erosion, the kind that happens when the river of resentment flows unchecked against the banks of love.

They had promised to be there for each other, always. A vow whispered in the quiet moments of early morning, shouted in the joyous chaos of holidays. But vows are fragile things, easily forgotten when the weight of the world presses down.

He remembered the day it started. Not with a fight, but with a silence. A silence that stretched across the dinner table, heavy and suffocating. It was the silence of things unsaid, of grievances swallowed, of empathy withheld.

And so, the cracks began to form. Tiny at first, barely visible. But they grew, fed by misunderstanding and watered by pride. Until one day, the foundation crumbled, and the house of love they had built came crashing down.