It’s as if a shadow has infiltrated my body, my bones are breaking with the inky darkness of it, a snake shedding its skin only to climb into mine.
Warm gore oozes sludge along my collarbone.
I want it to stop.
I open my eyes wider, straining them against my sockets, desperate tosee.
There is only darkness cut with razor-sharp pain.
But it’s me doing the desecration, all of it, everything, and Sullen watches from my cells. Deep in the marrow of my bone. He isn’t the shadow of a snake, the flimsy blink of a specter. He is more profound, buried under skin and blood. Burrowing in myveins like a disease. He’s forcing me to mutilate my own throat and?—
I choke on something wet. Hot. The taste of iron floods my mouth before white spots like ash burst in front of my unseeing eyes.
How could you?I thought we… I thoughtyou…
“Don’t forget, you asked for this.”
I inhale.
I awaken.
My eyes are open to something more than black.
There’s blood all over the floor.
The only light is from the moon, slicing across smoky marble. Thick, wet streaks of crimson.
I see it all from a low vantage point. Hardness beneath my cheek. My chest. My thighs.
My mind drifts to Sullen, his mouth on mine. The way he held me in the bed at Dreary, neither of us showering the other off.
Sleep came easily.
Then there was something else. The taste of coffee on my tongue. Sullen’s eyes watching me drink it, his pupils brighter than I’d ever seen. A moment I thought he might kiss me again in the light of day but he didn’t and… there was a knock on the door.
Then…what?
My head hurts.
I realize it as my limbs begin to tingle. As the scent of iron and rot fills my nose. The silence pounds against my ears. The sensation of nausea rolls in my belly, pressed into the hard marble floors.
I try to push up, palms planted beside me, elbows bent. I’m too tired, too weak, too shaky.
I blink in the dark, noticing ornate baseboards carved with filigree. The gold in the white walls glints in the moonlight.
Something about this is familiar. Not the place, although it has a level of opulence like my own parents’. Like everyone belonging to Writhe lives in. But the familiarity is something else.
It’s this… sensation in my belly.
The pounding of my temples. Dry mouth, aching body, sluggish limbs.
I’ve been here before. Done this dance. I know this feeling.
And the moment before it clicks, I hear footsteps. Harsh and pounding, vibrating beneath my cheek along the floor. Fear blankets me but I can’t turn my head to see who is coming and nothing but high walls, a half-hidden window covered in golden curtains, and a bloody floor can help me now.
My heart races and I think of what I just dreamt: Sullen, buried in my skin. Tattooed along my bones.
If you’re in so deep, where are you now?
