The carpet path burned under my bare feet as I circled faster, walls blurring at the edges.
The whispers started low—familiar gravel scrape against my skull, like nails on bone.
"He left you."
I covered my ears with both hands, bottle clinking against my temple. "Shut up."
"He saw your madness and couldn't stomach it."
"Shut up!" I screamed it this time, voice cracking.
A scratch opened across my forearm—hot, shallow, warning sharp. I barely felt it. Everything was hollow except the panic chewing through my chest like acid.
I started dialing anyone who'd ever known him.
His architect partner—straight to voicemail.
An old pit fighter contact I'd met once—number disconnected.
Even his fucking dentist—closed for the day.
Nothing.
I texted him for the hundredth time, fingers flying over cracked glass:
Where are you? Please. I'm scared. Just tell me you're alive.
Sent.
Delivered.
No read receipt.
No typing dots.
Nothing.
The bottle was empty. When had that happened?
I grabbed gin this time—anything to drown the cold spreading through my chest. Unscrewed the cap with shaking hands. Drank straight from the neck. The gin scorched like swallowing thorns, herbal and vicious, burning all the waydown but still couldn't touch the frozen void where he used to be.
The whispers grew louder, multiplying, overlapping.
"Without him, we own you completely."
"Lies," I hissed through clenched teeth, nails digging into my scalp now, abandoning biting for clawing. New pain. Same useless distraction.
Another scratch carved across my thigh—deeper this time, blood welling hot through denim. I didn't look. Didn't care.
Cried instead.
Hot tears streaking down my face as gin sloshed onto the floor. Sobs hitching in my chest—ugly, guttural, animal sounds I didn't recognize as my own.
"Why?" I screamed at the ceiling, at the shadows thickening in every corner, at whatever gods or ghosts were listening. "Why him? Why now?"
No answer except another scratch—collarbone this time, sharp enough to steal my breath.
My knees buckled.
