BROKEN
TRIVIA
She wasnothing and no one.
All she knew was darkness.
Her mind drifted aimlessly among the cavernous void that surrounded her.
But there was another presence nearby. She could sense it.
Someone was watching her.
A tingling sensation swept over her, like a chill or a whispering wind. Only, she had no physical form. So how could she feel such things?
Echoes of screams and cruel laughter surrounded her—a taste of the horrors within Pandora’s box. The screams of the victims, and the laughter of the darkness.
The most painful part of it all was that she still retained her memories. She stillknewshe was Pandora. Or Trivia. One of those two. She knew she had willingly sacrificed herself to seal up the box.
But the longer she floated in this infinite chasm, the less sane she felt. Were they memories at all? Or constructs of her imagination? Had she ever truly had a body of her own?
Of course she had. She remembered heat and longing and pleasure… A face with midnight blue eyes and golden hair.
Sometimes she could even hear Sol’s voice whispering in her ear.
Other times, the details of his face and voice and laughter slipped through her mind like water droplets she was desperately trying to keep from running through her fingers.
Perhaps she had been trapped here for years. Or perhaps it was merely days.
Somewhere out there, Sol and Gaia were living their lives. Without her.
But she had chosen this. And she would do it all over again, if it meant saving them.
My debt is paid,she thought.I have fully atoned now.
She wanted this to bring her some semblance of peace. She wanted to move on. To leave this wretched place and cross over to the next world as a soul released from death.
But this hell would never release her. And she would never be free.
Thatwas her sentence—an eternity trapped in Pandora’s box.
Fitting, since it was her fault it was opened in the first place. She had no one to blame but herself.
A soft chuckle sounded nearby. This wasn’t a faint echo, like all the other sounds in the darkness. This one felttooclose, like the person stood only a breath away.
She wanted to speak, to ask who was there, but she had no voice. No mouth.
And even if she did, what could she say? The evil that lurked here was monstrous and vile, but it could not hurt her. She had nothing left for it to hurt.
She was already shattered. Broken. Fragments of a soul who had once been.
And this was how she would always be.
“Do you ever stop pitying yourself?” asked a voice.
That same shuddering chill swept over her mind. Who was speaking to her? Who was even coherent enough to do such a thing?
This place was a prison for all. Including her.
