RHYAN
I can’t breathe.I can’t breathe.
That’s the first thing I realize as I come to, alone in the woods. I can’t fucking breathe. And yet, somehow, I’m still alive. I’m still alive. My chest is moving. But I’m not breathing. This is something else, something dark.
I can feel it. Feel the lack. The lack of my beating heart. Of the air flowing through my lungs. Of the blood pumping through my veins. All that kept me alive. All that made me mortal. And all that made meme. None of it’s here. None of it’s happening. Gods. Nothing about this is right. It’s like I’m pretending to breathe. Pretending to be alive. Pretending I’m human. Pretending … I’m not a monster.
But I am. At least, I’m about to be.
Anything else I do is a lie. A cowardly way to avoid the truth. Every breath is a myth, and every rise and fall of my chest is a falsehood.
So I stop. I stop all of it. I make my chest remain still. I stop breathing. I stop moving. I don’t even blink. Don’t even flinch. And seconds go by, and then a minute. And then another. And I’m still not breathing. Still not moving. And it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t fucking hurt. It should. I should be in agony, I should be desperate, in pain and gasping for breath.
But I’m not. I don’t need any of it. And that—that is fucking with my head more than anything else ever could.
Because not breathing feels the same to me as breathing. Not breathing feels just as natural.
And why wouldn’t it? I’m forsaken.I’mnot natural. Not anymore. And I never will be again.
The finality of it all snaps me from my frozen state and I rake my fingers across my face, nails cutting through my skin, pushing through my hair. When that’s not enough I’m punching myself in the chest, and the shoulders. Anywhere I can reach just to fuckingfeelsomething, to make myself breathe, or sigh, or gasp. Anything.
But I can’t.
Already, I’ve forgotten. I’ve forgotten how to breathe. Forgotten what it’s like to need to. But how? How is that already gone? No. No. It can’t be. Not yet. I’m not dead yet.
I try to stick out my chest, but that’s all I do. I’m not … I’m not breathing.
Suddenly, I can feel the panic rising up inside me. A hurricane brewing in my belly. The need to run, to hide, to scream, to cry.
I’m not alive. Not alive. Not alive.
But I’m not dead. I’m forsaken. In between.
Turning.
I can still feel it behind my eyes. The sensation of hot, wet, burning tears is there. I know it is. But it’s just a memory—the ghost of what I once felt. Like a lost limb that I swear I still have. I don’t cry. I can’t. I don’t … I don’t think akadim do that. Don’t think they have the right emotions. Or heart.
Or soul.
Sunset’s approaching. The sky is a vibrant purple and blue. As I gaze out, I can see the sun is a shimmer of gold on the horizon through the trees.
Fuck. Fuck.
I have minutes. Minutes before I finish the transformation. Before my body elongates. Before my fangs descend, my nails stretch into claws. Minutes before I’ll no longer be me. It’ll be quick. I’ve seen it happen. I know that much.
And then a tear does fall. One single tear. Perhaps my last. Because I don’t want to be gone. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be … one of them.
Right at that moment, I remember Garrett. The fear in his eyes. The horror of when he realized he was forsaken. That he would change. That he would lose himself and become a monster. I remember what he said, the desperation in his voice.
Let me die as myself. While I’m still me. While I still feel. While I still love.
I had to kill him. Had to stop the threat. But in the end, even killing him hadn’t been enough. Because he’d still turned. He’d become the monster we’d spent years training to kill.
I still see it. Still see his face in my dreams. In my nightmares. I can’t forget. How he changed, how he was different when I found him again. When I fought him as an akadim in the wild at the Bamarian border. It wasn’t him anymore. He wasn’t Garrett. He wasn’t my best friend.
He remembered who he was though, remembered me. But that was it. He had no soul. He had no heart, only colorless, empty memories of our friendship, of a life that he had twisted. And the things he’d done as an akadim … The people he’d hurt …
Gods. Gods!
