Chapter 2: The Walls Close In

Chapter 2: The Walls Close In

The pen felt unnaturally heavy in Liam’s hand. Signing the progress payment form felt like signing a confession to his own failure. The crisp snap of the clipboard as Arthur Pendleton closed it echoed in the half-finished room like a cell door slamming shut. Sly Vance gave them a final, triumphant smirk, twisting the gaudy gold ring on his finger, before he and the banker walked away, their laughter swallowed by the wind.

For a week, Liam and Sarah clung to a desperate, brittle hope. Maybe the confrontation had been a wake-up call. Maybe, having secured their money, Sly would now do the right thing. It was the last flickering ember of Liam’s faith in the system, his belief that people, ultimately, followed the rules.

That ember was swiftly and brutally extinguished.

The work continued, but with a quality that descended from incompetent to openly contemptuous. The infamous bathroom wall was drywalled over, entombing their dream of a claw-footed tub in a monument of sheer stupidity. New horrors appeared daily. A persistent damp spot bloomed on the drywall beneath the newly installed living room window, smelling of rot. The frame of the front door was so crooked that Liam could slide a quarter underneath it when it was closed.

Liam’s meticulous nature, once a source of pride in his own work, became a tool for torture. He documented everything. He took hundreds of photos with his phone, his grease-stained fingers a constant, stark contrast to the shoddy workmanship he was capturing. He created a spreadsheet: crooked outlets, cracked floor joists, mismatched siding, plumbing fixtures that rattled ominously when touched. His notes were precise, clinical, a desperate attempt to impose logic on a situation that had devolved into chaos.

His calls to Sly were met with a new tactic: cheerful stonewalling.

“Leaky window? Liam, my friend, the house needs to settle! It’s normal!” Sly would say, his voice oozing false reassurance.

“Sly, the door frame is an inch off level.”

“An inch? Character, my boy, character! These custom homes all have their little quirks.”

Soon, the calls stopped being answered at all. They went straight to voicemail, each unreturned message a small, sharp twist of the knife. Liam’s attempts to reach Arthur Pendleton at the bank were even more fruitless. He was always “in a meeting” or “out of the office.” On the one occasion Liam did get him on the phone, the banker’s voice was as cold as a foreclosure notice.

“Mr. Miller, our agreement is with the contractor. We provide the funds; he provides the construction. Any disputes you have regarding quality are between you and him. The bank’s only concern is the timely repayment of your loan.” The line clicked dead before Liam could even respond.

The house, once a symbol of their future, became a source of constant, grinding dread. The financial strain was a physical weight. They were burning through their savings, paying the mortgage on the half-built wreck while still paying rent on their cramped apartment. The dream was bleeding them dry.

The strain began to fracture the foundation of their marriage. Arguments, rare before, now flared up with frightening regularity.

“We have to do something!” Sarah would plead, her hands twisting in her lap. The light in her eyes was gone, replaced by a haunted, hollow look. “We can’t just let them get away with this!”

“I am doing something!” Liam would snap back, gesturing at his growing folder of evidence. “There has to be a process! A building inspector, a consumer protection agency… some official channel!”

“What process, Liam?” Her voice would rise, thin and sharp with hysteria. “The one where they steal our money and laugh at us? The system you trust is the one that’s crushing us!”

He hated that she was right. His faith had been a liability, his trust a weakness they had expertly exploited.

Sarah retreated into herself. Her sketchbook, once filled with vibrant drawings of their future life, became a ledger of their nightmare. The soft pencil lines of their dream kitchen were replaced by angry charcoal slashes depicting the crooked cabinets. A frantic, distorted sketch showed the bathroom wall as a monstrous tombstone. She stopped drawing altogether after a while, leaving the book on the coffee table like an abandoned prayer.

The days bled into a miserable haze of worry and helplessness. They were trapped, paying for a disaster they couldn't live in and couldn't sell. They were ghosts haunting their own future.

The final blow arrived on a Tuesday, delivered by a cheerful mailman who had no idea he was handing them their execution order.

Two envelopes lay in the mailbox, both made of heavy, cream-colored paper that felt expensive and intimidating. One bore the letterhead of a prestigious downtown law firm. The other was from the bank. A cold dread, sharper and more final than anything he’d felt before, seized Liam.

He handed the law firm’s letter to Sarah, his fingers numb, while he tore open the one from the bank. They read them standing in the narrow hallway of their apartment, surrounded by packed boxes that now seemed like relics of a foolish, long-dead optimism.

Liam’s eyes scanned the dense, legalistic text of the bank’s letter. Words leaped out at him: “NOTICE OF DEFAULT… breach of covenant… failure to resolve disputes… initiation of foreclosure proceedings…” They were calling the loan. The entire amount. Due in thirty days.

Across the hall, a choked gasp escaped Sarah’s lips. She held her letter out, her hand trembling violently. Liam took it. It was from a lawyer representing Silas Vance. It was a “Notice of Intent to Sue.” It accused them of defamation, of interfering with the construction schedule, and of breach of contract for “failing to foster a cooperative environment.” Sly was suing them.

The letters fell from Liam’s hands and fluttered to the floor. It was a pincer movement, perfectly coordinated, designed to utterly annihilate them. One enemy was taking their house; the other was suing them for the privilege.

They sank onto a stack of boxes, the fight finally draining out of them. The walls of the small apartment seemed to be closing in, squeezing the very air from their lungs. There was no recourse, no official channel, no one to appeal to. The system hadn’t just failed them; it had been turned against them like a weapon. They were out of money, out of options, and out of hope.

Liam looked at Sarah. Her face was pale, her eyes vacant. In that moment, he felt a despair so profound it was almost peaceful. It was the calm of absolute, undeniable defeat. Their dream wasn’t just shattered; its pieces were being ground into dust.