The word shakes me, breaks me, until even the monitors seem to echo it.
And in the blur—I think I feel her fingers on mine.
Soft. Warm.
Anchoring.
But maybe it’s just another hallucination.
Another ghost to drag me deeper.
Because if she’s real—I don’t know if I’ll survive it.
The world won’t sit still.
Walls melt into sand. Lights turn into muzzle flashes. Voices split into echoes of men already buried.
I’m strapped. No—pinned. No—caught in the blast again, face-first in the dirt, lungs filling with dust. I can’t get them out. My brothers. My ghosts. Mason. Reese. I see them crawling. Hands outstretched. Skin peeling.
“Get up, Kingston?—”
But it’s not Torres. It’s my father. It’s my CO. It’s the priest who shoved scripture down my throat when I was too young to bleed. Their voices braid together, pulling me down instead of up.
Butterfly.
She appears at the edges, always at the edges. Her face is smoke. Her mouth is blood. One second she’s reaching for me, the next she’s turning away, walking barefoot through the kitchen with syrup dripping down her thighs.
“You’ll leave me,” she whispers.
I try to answer but my tongue is nailed to the roof of my mouth. The tube down my throat is a gag. The oxygen hiss is the desert screaming.
Hands press my chest. They don’t stop. Too hard. Too deep. My ribs crack. I taste iron. For a breath, I’m certain I’m gone.
Then—beep.
A stuttering metronome.
Proof I’m still here.
I want to beg them to stop. I want to beg her not to go. My lips don’t move. My body’s not mine. I thrash, but my arms are tied, IVs and restraints tangling me tighter than barbed wire.
A mask presses down. My vision tunnels. The faces bend and twist—nurses, soldiers, Cassandra—every one of them wears her eyes. Blue fire. Always those fucking eyes.
I hear Mason’s voice. Too close, too raw.
“He doesn’t know how to survive it. But he can’t breathe without you.”
I choke. Scream. Maybe it’s just in my head.
The monitors spike. A shout goes up. I’m falling into static.
Butterfly leans close. She says my name. Soft, sharp, salvation wrapped in a sob.
Dax.
And I fight.
Through the fire, through the sand, through the broken glass and the hands trying to bury me alive—I fight because she’s here.
