She won’t wake up afraid.
The sky outside the window bleeds into ash—no light yet, but the dark’s retreating. Morning’s breath, shallow and bruised.
I haven’t slept.
I don’t know if I will.
My body’s still, but inside? Inside, there’s movement. Not chaos—no. That was earlier. This is the slow turning of a wheelthat’s been rusted shut too long. Something old, grinding against bone and memory, loosening.
I stare at her face in the pale grey dim. Just her profile. The sweep of lashes against skin still marked by dried salt. The slow flutter of her pulse beneath her jaw. She’s not beautiful at this moment. She’s real.
She’s undone.
And I want to earn the silence she’s given me.
I lower my head, rest my cheek against her hair, and I think of every version of myself I’ve ever killed just to keep surviving.
The boy with the duct-taped mouth in a stranger’s basement.
The teenager with blood on his hands and no one to confess to.
The man with cameras on every wall, just to prove to himself that he sees what he’s become.
And the one who marked himself with Venator, thinking if he branded the monster, maybe the monster would stay separate.
But they’re all me.
Everyone of them.
And somehow, she’s still here.
Her hand twitches against my chest in her sleep. Like she’s dreaming of something warm. Or like she’s reaching.
I don’t take her fingers in mine.
I just let them rest there.
This moment—this one—isn’t for taking.
It’s for staying.
It’s for choosing not to disappear into the mask again.
I glance down at my wrist. The ink’s still there. It always will be. But tonight, I don’t hide it.
I let her sleep against it.
Let it press between us like a truth we both know and neither runs from.
This is the first night I haven’t chased her.
The first night I haven’t needed to hear her whimper just to feel real.
The first night I didn’t have to be the predator to know I still existed.
And if this is what it feels like?—
To stay.
