Tears burned hot down my cheeks. The collar around my neck grew cold. The edges of my vision bled into an impossible, cerulean blue, and my failures split apart, peeling back to reveal the Prophet framed in the dark opening. I hurled myself toward him. His eyes widened in surprise, and the dizzying wallpaper melted into smooth, seamless walls. I slammed shoulder-first into the doorway, pain ricocheting up my arm and shattering through my teeth.
The collar pulsed with heat, syncing with my heartbeat as though it were mimicking my actions.
At first, I thought it was the chandelier creaking… until the sound bent into words.
“You left your friend to die,” a child’s voice breathed, so close it stirred the hair on my neck.
I flinched, but another voice slid in, silky, cold, and sharp as glass.
“You’re not a friend or an ally. You’re useless.”
More voices bled in, overlapping, worming into my skull until I couldn’t tell where one ended and another began.
“You’re a burden,” someone spat, as if sealing a truth I’d always known.
“You shouldn’t exist.”
“You’re nothing. Nothing.”
Then Cayden’s voice cut through them all, steady, certain, and cruel. “You make their lives harder by existing.”
The words crowded in, pressing against my skull, hissing and multiplying until there was no air left to breathe. The room pitched sideways, dragging my balance with it. I clamped my hands over my ears, but the whispers burrowed in, writhing where only my thoughts should be.
“Every fall, someone else had to pick you up,” one hissed.
My dad’s hand in mine, Rowan’s arm lifting me from blood, Cayden’s grip pulling me from the train all spiraled.
“You’ll never be worth saving.”
“You’re nothing.” The words hit again. And again. Until there was no space left inside me.
My breath hitched in sharp, useless gasps.
I folded in on myself as the whispers pressed closer, too many to separate, too loud to silence.
Time dissolved. Hours, days, I couldn’t tell, leaving me suspended in an airless moment. I hadn’t moved from the bed, but every muscle ached. My failures jabbed at me like dull knives, again and again. Only the sharp gnaw of hunger could cut through the whispers.
The room was a sealed box, no windows, no escape, just the four walls breathing with me. A wooden mug in the bathroom held water, but nothing else. I’d run out of tears hours ago. There had to be something worth saving in me… right?
“You’re a burden.”“You shouldn’t exist.”“You’re nothing.”
The words fell like blows, one after another.
“Am I?” I whispered.
The voices stopped. Not peace, just a hollow, waiting kind of silence.
The door clicked open. The Prophet entered with a silver tray, steam curling from a bowl of soup. My stomach twisted painfully.
“I want you to have this,” he said, “but you must show me gratitude.”
If this place was even real… if I was.
Oh, hi, Miss Q. You’re back. I’ve missed you.
One corner of my mouth twitched, too many teeth, too little sanity.
He faltered but pressed on. “A simple thank you.”
