Shadow by my fireplace, p.1
Shadow by My Fireplace, page 1
Shadow By My Fireplace
Harper M. Tremblay
Copyright © 2026 by Harper M. Tremblay
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact thewhumpyprintingpress@gmail.com.
No generative artificial intelligence (AI) was used in the writing of this work. The publisher expressly prohibits any entity from using this publication for purposes of training AI technologies to generate text, including without limitation technologies that are capable of generating works in the same style or genre as this publication.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Cover Design by Anne Hessel
For those readers who find comfort within the pages of Shadow's story, whatever your reason may be, know that I am right alongside you. Shadow's story is uncomfortable at times, but where one person may find a deep discomfort, another may feel heard for the first time. To that end, I would make one thousand people uncomfortable so one person feels that some part of their story is told.
Also, to the Great Lakes, may your legends ever live on.
Also by Harper M. Tremblay
The Dark Side of the Sun
Contents
A Note About Content
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Acknowledgements
About the Author
A Note About Content
This story contains the following content:
Sexual assault
Torture
Human trafficking
Captivity, dehumanization, conditioning
Suicide attempt (unsuccessful)
Nonconsensual drugging, opiates, addiction, drug overdoses
Foster system-related trauma
Character death
PTSD
Recovery from trauma
Happy ending
If this book isn't for you, no worries! But if it is, we hope you enjoy this story about survival and healing ...
Chapter 1
When Sacha was a child, he sometimes heard a story from his mother about a mighty knight who fished a powerful witch out of the waters with nothing more than goldenrod. Brought down to his knees by his enemy, the knight had no choice but to summon her. She took pity upon the knight and blessed him with gifts and healing so he might ride into the horizon.
Even if knights were of the bygone past, Sacha still found himself wishing to be one as a child.
Those days seemed so far away, even if they were the only comfort he had within the walls built by his captor. He’d been so hopeful back then. When did hope begin to feel like a stranger and misery a friend? Where were those lofty dreams he had back then? Why couldn’t he imagine himself inhabiting that skin again?
Darkness encased the room, reminding Sacha how deep in the belly of the beast he was. It was slightly damp, too, but dampness was better than dry air. Dry air would hurt his fresh wounds more. There wasn’t so much as a blanket or a roll of bandages for the oozing, burning gashes on his back. They were surely infected, but the merciful embrace of death was preferable to a life like his.
The skin he inhabited now was one of a doll, a pet for a corrupt, wealthy man. He could never be anything more.
Yes, Sacha was to be out of sight, out of mind when he wasn’t wanted by Master. Nobody could know that he existed. Nobody could know what Master was involved with. He needed to be hidden away from the world, away from the light, away from the prying eyes that surely followed Master wherever he went.
Tears formed in Sacha’s eyes. What he wouldn’t give for a warm embrace or even just a blanket. He was naked, bleeding, and filthy on the floor. Of course he was freezing. He was many days into starvation, many days into blood loss.
Was the end coming soon?
Master hadn’t been down to see him in days. The noises upstairs were almost non-existent since yesterday.
Maybe Master was leaving him there to die. Yet Sacha knew that to be too merciful a fate.
A rush of chills startled him. Yes, the wounds were in fact infected. A wave of nausea washed over him next. He was seldom nauseous. It wasn’t a good sign.
Maybe he’s waiting for me to try to escape.
Chills tore through his flesh again, brought on by the memory of his last escape attempt rather than the fever.
Sacha wasn’t sure he remembered what it was called, but Master said that Sacha would never walk again after the impending punishment.
A simple mercy, perhaps. The less he could do, the less he would upset Master.
Maybe the festering wound would infect his blood and give him the ultimate relief.
Sacha decided. He would go upstairs.
The door to his room was unlocked. That wasn’t normal. Master was testing him.
He opened the door all the way to see an empty house.
With featherlight steps, Sacha walked to the front door. The last time he’d left the house, he’d come back cold and dripping wet after being left outside for countless hours with broken ankles and tied to a tree. The next week, he’d developed Lyme. It was one of the few times that Master had ever bought him pills – antibiotics.
Sacha took a deep breath. Escape was what Master wanted him to do, after all.
Legs shaking, Sacha pushed the front door open to the wilderness, the same wilderness he was entirely unfamiliar with, yet felt like an old friend. He didn’t look back as he ran, a deer in the hunt. Eyes closed, he pushed forward, pushed forward, ran through the underbrush, until he no longer recognized anything and the forest was all the same.
Soon enough, those scarred, damaged feet couldn’t hold him up anyone. Not with the weight of infection in his bones. He realized that the adrenaline had carried him far away from home.
Maybe I’ll die here.
A bird twittered a bit overhead as he collapsed, finally too weak to ever lift himself up again.
It wasn’t exactly a bad place to die. At least it wasn’t in Master’s home.
As the void of unconsciousness swallowed him, Sacha took a deep, peaceful breath. It wasn’t a bad day, not at all.
***
Cyril was quick to gather his materials for the day. Although town wasn’t too far away, he tired far too quickly of the crowds to find himself there long enough to finish shopping. He preferred his upcoming once-yearly trip to pick up seeds and iron for his gardening to interacting with anyone, ever.
He was early to rise, early in the sack. After all, the best picking times for his fruits and vegetables was early in the morning, just after the dew but before the scorching sun of high noon.
Of course, that was often the best time for hunting, too, when the deer were still out. The fruits and vegetables always took priority. He could easily freeze deer meat, while fruits needed to be picked within a very tight window to taste their best.
Despite having some beets ready to pick, he chose the hunt that day. The meat from his last catch was gone and the winds were turning cold. He needed all the pelts he could get to avoid having to buy blankets. Plus the meat – hunting any doe in the winter was a silly idea, what with their bellies full of babies. He needed to store as much meat as possible before the cold came.
Deer, he would not find that day.
After he gathered all his supplies and he went towards his usual trapping spots, he stumbled across something he’d never expected to see.
A man laid in front of him, beaten bloody and covered in horribly infected wounds. Instincts from a time long before his quiet cabin in the woods took over as he approached the man, shouting at him, shaking him, begging for him to be alive.
The scene was familiar, far too much so. He pressed his finger to the man’s neck, feeling for his pulse. It was shallow and fast. More worryingly, the man’s skin was also burning to the touch.
Cyril didn’t realize there was tension in his shoulders until they began to hurt. He took a few moments to slow his breathing.
He probably isn’t contagious. The fever’s from all those wounds.
That was probably a worse case than if it was contagious. If he was sick from the wounds, the infection might be in his bloodstream.
Shit.
Cyril dropped his hunting gear, those protective instincts quickly taking over. He picked the man up in his arms and rushed ba ck to his cabin.
Beyond the panic, Cyril was unmistakably angry. He hated people. As he laid the man on his bed without care for the bloody, dirty mess that was his body and got a thin sheet to cover him, it was easy to remember why.
No, he didn’t hate the survivors of tragedy. He hated all the wretched people that wrought people into stories. Memory told him well that he was just as capable as the next person of perpetuating such tragedies. If he couldn’t trust himself, Cyril certainly couldn’t trust anyone else.
He hurried over to the tap. The water would be cold, easier to cool with ice. Cyril poured some water into the bowl, then took some ice from the freezer. Quietly, he dipped a rag in the ice water, wrung it, and put it on the man’s forehead.
Bitter panic rose in Cyril’s chest when the man made not a sound in response to the cold compress.
Would the beaten stranger really die in his house?
Another one I couldn’t save.
The idea was unbearable.
He wouldn’t let it happen again. He couldn’t. He couldn’t live with himself if he did. Cyril was tired of letting people go, stranger, friend, foe, or family.
I’ll save this one if it’s the last thing I do.
Cyril pulled the skin up on the man’s arm. It held up perfectly and only went back down when Cyril pressed again.
I still have supplies, right?
Without another thought, Cyril went to the cabinet he dared not touch. Inside was a collection of vials, needles, tubing, and instruments – all from that other time in his life. Quietly, he picked out a bag of saline and some tubing. He didn’t have an IV pole. He’d long gotten rid of the thing. He did have a bedpost and tape. It would have to do.
To his surprise, the skin prepper in his IV kit was still functional. Placing a needle came as easily as breathing. Blood was very, very slow to come up, but he knew he had a good vein when he pulled the plunger on his IV flush back.
A good vein had been surprisingly easy to find on the dehydrated man. He only had one more bag of fluids, but if the IV fluids got the man to wake up, Cyril could give him water.
Once the drip was going on the IV, Cyril went back into the vials, looking for anything, any antibiotic he might have. The man needed them desperately, and he wouldn’t have time to reach the pharmacy in town before it was too late.
To his absolute relief, he found a one-year-expired vial of cefepime. Cyril found it a blessing to have anything at all, much less something he would administer if given the choice.
Quickly, he drew up the man’s dose and put the bottle back. With the speed he was used to having back in his emergency room days, Cyril injected the medicine into the man’s IV, allowing himself to breathe a small sigh of relief.
Next, he dipped the rag on his forehead back into the ice water. How long had it taken the cloth to feel fresh out of a warmer?
I need to check him for ticks.
Cyril lifted the sheet from the oozing, bloody wounds covering the man’s body. He noticed something he hadn’t before around the man’s neck – a collar.
Cyril swallowed.
There were tattoos on him, too. He could only assume they weren’t given of his own will.
Fuck.
By some miracle, the man did not have a single tick anywhere on his body. Further investigation of the man’s body had Cyril saying his prayers.
Cyril concluded that if the man survived, that would be the real miracle.
The wounds on the man’s legs came first. He’d need to compress them. The man would be laying down for far too long. Blood clots were always a concern, especially with so much broken flesh.
With a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, cotton balls, and bandages, Cyril started to work on the torn up flesh that comprised the man’s legs.
This part, he was less familiar with. He had always had help in these situations. Scrubbing each of the wounds so carefully and so deeply was tiring.
Cyril thought back to that time, three years ago, before his peaceful little life in his cabin in the woods.
Well, not so peaceful now, I guess.
He found himself lost in his thoughts for a long time. Familiar faces of people he’d saved and, more noticeably, the ones he didn’t, flashed through his mind as he worked away at the wounds, covering them and cleaning them.
Even if some part of him found relief, perhaps even gratification, in healing, it was easy to remember why he’d abandoned medicine for the life he had now. People were undeniably cruel creatures.
Suddenly, the collar was bothering him. Cyril pulled a knife out of his boot and, with the utmost care, cut the leather off of the man’s neck. Under it, he saw burns. With disgust, he looked back at the collar and noticed the prongs.
Fucking shock collar.
It took everything in him to steady himself again.
Although he knew it wasn’t healthy, he found himself focusing on the sad memories of his life before to steady himself. Sorrow was easier to control than ire.
He was like that until he looked up from his work and saw scared, pale brown eyes looking up at him. Suddenly, the world froze.
He’s alive.
Chapter 2
Upon seeing those eyes, Cyril was immediately met with a problem he hadn’t yet thought of: what exactly was he supposed to say to the man?
He didn’t have much time before the man began to whimper and attempt to stand. Of course, he was weak. Cyril immediately jumped to get the man back in bed and to try to prevent him from standing again.
“You’re very injured. There’s a chance you’ve gone septic. Please, just rest.”
When Cyril looked down at the man, he was huddling and covering his face, whimpering. It was almost as if he was saying. “Don’t hurt me.”
The fear on the man’s face gave him pause. He tried to remember what he said to all those terrified people back then, but failed to bring up even a semblance of what exactly he used to say. Could he really tell the man that everything was going to be fine? He doubted that the man would believe him.
In all honesty, he didn’t even know that he could promise the man that everything was going to be fine. All he could do was hope – hope that the man wasn’t really septic and hope that the injuries would heal well.
More than anything, Cyril wanted to know what happened to the man. He understood that the man was probably delirious, if not from the fever then from the pain.
“Who did this to you?”
The man froze. Terror filled his eyes. His breathing began to grow deeper and faster. Soon enough, he was having a full-blown panic attack.
Cyril grabbed the man’s shoulders, but the man immediately, with his whole body, flinched away. Cyril quickly let go, trying to figure out what to do next.
He went to the kitchen, only to find the man trying to get up from his bed again. Cyril ran back over and put him back down in the bed.
“You need to stay lying down.” Cyril made sure to use a stern tone, but not too stern. He didn’t want to make the panic attack worse.
The man looked at him with that quickly familiar look of terror, but listened. Somehow, Cyril felt awful. The man looked so dejected and afraid as he went back to the kitchen in search of something that he could use to ground himself. Cyril decided on some ice and brought it back to the man.
Again, the man looked at him with the fear one would have for an angry god. The look made Cyril sick to his stomach.
It finally occurred to Cyril that the man was probably kept as some sort of pet or plaything judging by the collar that had been around his neck. That thought made him feel even more ill.
“Here. Put this in your mouth.” He put the piece of ice in the man’s hand. “No tricks. Focus on the cold. I – ” Cyril took a deep breath. “It was wrong to ask you such a personal question right off the bat. I can’t promise that you’ll be okay, but I’ll do everything in my power to make you feel better and get through this.”
A look of distrust flashed across the man’s face. Terror was quick to replace it. The man obediently took the ice and flinched a bit when it hit his mouth. He shrank away from Cyril. Cyril simply let it happen while the man calmed down.
