The heir isn’t standing up.
He’s waking.
I rise without thought.
My heel settles on the collar.
Gently at first.
Just enough to feel it under my boot—light, pathetic, barely there.
Then—
I grind.
Bone on stone.
The collar snaps, plastic warping and snapping like cartilage.
I push harder.
Not to break it.
To erase it.
To make damn sure it never remembers my throat.
When I lift my foot, it lies in two jagged pieces, twisted like something that tried to breathe and failed.
Good.
I tip my face to the sky.
Still gray.Still blank.Still unmoved by what men shed on church steps.
Fog beads on my lashes. The morning is cruel and clean—exactly what it should be.
No angels.No choir.No mercy drifting down.
Just air.
Real air.
I drag it deep into my lungs.
They burn.
Not from smoke.Not from fear.
From oxygen.
Like my body just clawed its way free from underground.
I breathe again.
And again.
And again.
