magisternihil's 100-word story for April 15, 2025

magisternihil wrote the following micro-story on Hectalex on April 15, 2025. Each story on Hectalex is inspired by a daily visual prompt and must be exactly 100 words.

Eighty-six steps to the apartment, each one a herculean effort to achieve, not from tiredness or age (though I am tired and old) but from the knowledge that at the end of the series of climbs stands my door, and behind that door she will either be sitting up in bed, smiling, or half asleep, murmuring past memories as she sweats through her pajamas and begs for it all to end. Or she will be gone. I stop, breathe deep, slip the key in to the lock and turn the knob. I plaster a smile on my face and enter.

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