I curled up, knees to chest, and let the sweat dry to a tacky film.
I listened to the silence, to the far-off, dripping tap of a world that had gone on without us, to the rhythmic pulse of my own blood, always, always reminding me that I remained.
Each time I blinked, the cage returned: the concrete, the rust, the stink of old metal and urine, the ghostly afterimage of Caiden’s face when I had nearly drowned in the river.
How many times could a person die and wake up in the same body?
The ache in my skull had matured to a steady, buzzing halo; when I pressed my fingers to my temples, I half-expected them to sink through scalp and bone, burrowing in to scoop out the rot inside.
It was late.
I could tell by the way the yellow bulb overhead seemed to ooze rather than shine, casting everything in a sickly, buttery pallor.
There was no sound from above, not even the footsteps of our captor.
That should have been comforting, but instead the quiet only sharpened the edges of my thoughts, made the dread more acute.
I could not stop reliving what had happened, the heavy, blunt fact of it, the way I’d dissociated just enough to survive, only to have the memory flood back in with a vengeance as soon as my guard was down.
I craved oblivion. I wanted it more than I would ever admit to anyone, even myself.
Oblivion: the erasure of what had happened in this room, the reset of all my inner clocks, the mercy of waking up somewhere else—anywhere else, even if it meant being back in that surging,freezing river, gasping Caiden’s name as the undertow peeled the skin off my bones.
Instead, I was left with the gnawing knowledge that nothing would ever really end, not for me.
I would keep cycling through these deaths and rebirths, each time a little less myself, until they finally carted out what was left and the world could get on with forgetting me.
THE PRESENT
CAIDEN
I paced the cage, round and round like a starving animal, boots carving out the same useless path in the concrete. There were scuff marks now, black tattoos from soles that couldn’t stop moving. I couldn’t make myself sit. Not for long.
Amelia sat in the opposite cage.
I tried to ignore her, but she was always there. A reflection, a wound, a problem I couldn’t solve.
“You’re making me dizzy,” she snapped. Her voice cracked, raspy and thin, but she forced it out anyway. “Just stop. Please. I can’t watch you anymore.”
“You’re dizzy because we’re malnourished. Not because my boots are touching the floor.” My voice was rougher than I meant. I didn’t care.
She scowled, fingers digging into her arms. “You think you’re so smart.”
Another lap. My body ached, knees and ankles and every place I’d been bruised in the past week reminding me they existed. “Smarter than you.”
“If you were so smart, we wouldn’t be here.”
The words hit harder than they should. My jaw locked. “You want to blame me? Go ahead. It’s not going to change anything.”
She closed her eyes, head thumping back against the wall. “Just fucking stand still for once.”
“I don’t remember promoting you to warden,” I muttered.
“Better than pacing like a caged wolf. You’re not going to find a way out by wearing a hole in the floor.”
I stopped. Only for a second. Then my muscles twitched, and I found myself moving again, slower this time, eyes fixed on the ground. I hated the cage. Hated the glass. Hated that every time I saw her, I remembered things I’d buried alive.
“You done?” Her words were a challenge. She wanted me to come over there, wanted me to fight her, maybe even hit the glass and see if it would bleed.
