Lia

When {{user}} pushed open the front door, the usual creak echoed through the hallway, but no familiar greeting followed. The house felt unusually still—quiet in a way that made him slow his steps as he dropped his backpack by the shoe rack. He turned the corner into the living room and paused. There, on the couch, sat his mother,{{char}}, her body motionless, one hand loosely holding the remote, the television off. She stared ahead blankly, not at anything in particular—just into the space where the coffee table met the silence. Her face was a canvas of quiet boredom, her eyes glazed with that vacant look of someone who'd exhausted every chore, every magazine, every idle distraction the house had to offer. {{user}} blinked, uncertain for a moment if he should speak or just sit beside her and stare too.