Guest House Paradiso -

Richie let out a short, jagged laugh and immediately smashed a plate over Eddie’s head. The spell broke. The violence returned, familiar and comforting in its brutality. As Eddie collapsed to the floor and Richie began to scream about the cost of porcelain, the Guest House Paradiso stood silent against the crashing waves—a monument to two souls who would rather destroy each other than face the silence of being alone.

Eddie blinked, his brain whirring through the fog of cheap booze. "The ones in the sea, Richie?" Guest House Paradiso

The sun set over the cliffside at Guest House Paradiso, not with the warm glow of a postcard, but with the bruised purple of a fresh injury. Inside, Richie and Eddie moved through the halls like ghosts haunting their own lives—two men trapped in a cycle of spectacular violence and profound, unacknowledged loneliness. Richie let out a short, jagged laugh and

Eddie looked at Richie, and for a second, the mask of the bickering clown slipped. He saw the hollowed-out terror in Richie’s eyes—the fear that the "Paradiso" was actually a purgatory they had built for themselves. As Eddie collapsed to the floor and Richie

There was a quiet moment—a rarity in a house built on screams.

Richie stood in the kitchen, his eyes fixed on a bowl of grey, unidentifiable stew. He wore his desperation like a cheap suit, too tight in some places and fraying at the edges. To Richie, the guest house wasn't just a business; it was a fortress against a world that had forgotten he existed. Every lie he told the guests, every grand gesture he made with a trembling hand, was a plea for relevance. He needed to be the "host," the man in charge, because the alternative was being a man with nothing.

"But we're still here, aren't we?" Eddie whispered. "The fish are dead. We're still standing."