Each finger hurts in a way that is unrelenting and inconsolable. All I want to do is sleep to relieve myself of the suffering. Nightmares are hard but nothing is worse than this existence. Four weeks and no sign of her? It feels like I’ve been here, in hell, for four years. The devastation morphs into anger, then hatred. But a scent might remind me of the top of her head, and I miss her again. I’ve made myself sick over the emotional whiplash.
I think about that kiss over and over again. I think about my last words to her. About finally confessing how I feel.
And then she fuckingleavesme here.
My world is smeared in red.
Where could she have gone?
Will she be lost forever?
I shouldn’t be worried about her because look at the agonizing shitshow I’m experiencing a front row seat to. But I am. I am so fucking worried about her.
What if she’s been killed? Back in the asylum? What if she’s made destructive changes to the future?
I’ve exhausted every option.
I’ve fallen asleep at night with knots in my stomach and nerves shooting bombs of anxiety into my chest.
Sometimes, I’ll hear a woman laugh in another cage on this floor, and for a fraction of a second—I allow myself to get my hopes up. I become that little boy in the abandoned cottage with the Demechnef extremists, waiting for my father to come save me. I am fooled into believeing wholeheartedly that it’s her laugh. That she came back for me.
She’s gone.
She isn’t coming back for me.
Accepting that truth has to be easier than waiting around with a maimed hand.
On week two of waiting, I got an infection in my middle finger. The swelling and pus zinged up to my elbow and made it impossible to think about anything else. Sophia tried to get me to eat. Jack risked his life to find antibiotics.
The Mazonist Brothers visited me on day three of her exit. They confirmed my wife was in fact a witch. I just sat there, surrounded by a reeking puddle of my own vomit, dripping in a cold sweat, and trembling from the constant unbearable misery I’ve been sentenced to.
Every week since? The kitchen staff has starved me in retribution
She isn’t coming back for me.
Just fucking accept it, Niklaus!
Dellilian materializes at my side, nudging her head and wet snout into me. She’s been doing this since my first night alone here. Initially, that instinct to banish her from my sight almost took over. But Dellilian is all I have left of her. She’s proof I haven’t gone mad. She’s proof I am from the future. So, I let the snuggly creature curl up against me, soaking her body heat into my skin and providing the only bit of comfort I’ve had in a while.
With my good hand, I pet her head. The strange wolf purrs and grumbles. And she leaves few words in my thoughts to think on.
“Don’t give up, Mr. Niklaus.”
How could I let myself get that attached? I had let myselfloveher. I still do. Four weeks in abandonment and I can’t uncover how to make it stop.
Dellilian disappears as someone moves a cage away from me.
“If your wife really is a witch, she’ll find a way to come back for you,” Sophia says through the bars. It’s almost morning, and I’m sure she can hear my vicious, dismal thoughts racing from my cage.
“Stop,” I growl.
“Sapphire loves you. Anyone could see it.”
“Do not fucking say her name!” I pound my right fist against the bar. Anger is what will keep the urge to sob into my hands like a child at bay. Anger is the only resource that’s helped me.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers weakly.
But even through the anger, guilt and remorse can still beat me to the ground.
