Because I’d learned something vital — about fear, and love, and the fragile space between them.

When Detective Whitaker first said “The suspect isn’t human,” I thought he meant the cat.

Now I know better. The real suspect was fear itself — the quiet, invisible thing that turns love into suspicion, family into doubt, and truth into shadow.

Fear isn’t human.
But it lives inside us just the same.

Note: This story is a work of fiction inspired by real events. Names, characters, and details have been altered. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental. All images are for illustrative purposes only.