This is my post on #freewriters3103 #dailyprompt hide in the wardrobe hosted by 
The old mahogany wardrobe didn’t just hold clothes; it held Elias’s entire future. For three years, he had lived like a monk, tucking crisp bills into the lining of a tattered winter coat he never wore. It was his "escape hatch"—ten thousand dollars meant to take him far away from this gray, industrial town.
The day he finally bought his plane ticket, he reached into the dark recesses of the wardrobe, his fingers searching for the familiar weight of the envelope. He felt wool, a stray button, and the rough wood of the back panel.
But the envelope was gone.
Elias tore the wardrobe apart. Hangers clattered like skeletal bones against the floor. He ripped the lining of every jacket and threw mothballs across the room in a frantic blur. Then, his eyes fell on a small, jagged hole in the corner of the floorboards, right beneath the wardrobe's heavy foot.
A single, confetti-like scrap of green paper lay near the opening.
He dropped to his knees, peering into the dark gap with a flashlight. There, nestled in a bed of shredded currency and insulation, was a nest. A family of mice looked back at him, their home built from the literal fabric of his dreams. His life savings had been meticulously chewed into soft, expensive bedding.
Elias sat on the floor, surrounded by empty hangers. He had spent years hiding his money from the world, only to have it stolen by the very walls he called home. He wasn't going anywhere. He just had the most expensive wallpaper in the county.