The desperate drumbeat against my ribs intensifies with each breath that fogs in the air.
No.
I try to fight the black, to thrash out, but the cement poured on my body imprisons me in place. I can see my ownlimbs, but my skin is stretched tight, detached, and far away, floating in the void.
These limbs don’t belong to me.
Idon’t belong to me.
The darkness shifts, transforming into a suffocating presence—a heavy velvet curtain draped over my face. The weight steals my breath, and nausea spikes hard, but I don’t throw up.
Ican’t.
Thethump-thump-thumpaccelerates, a chaotic rhythm of panic. It’s no longer my heart that’s beating in my ears. It’s the sound of a hammer driving a nail into soft wood. A sound scraping the inside of my head.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Mommy.
Daddy.
Help.
I can’t breathe.
Please help me breathe.
I can’t…breathe.
I scream, but only a low, haunting voice comes out.
The stars slowly return to the ceiling, shining brighter, and I can see them dangling toward me.
Take me with you, I whisper in my head.I want to go with you.
I float higher toward the stars, watching the scene from above as the small body—the useless shell I left behind—barely gives a shudder. The terror coils hot in the cavity where my center should be, but it’s distant, muffled by the black.
It’s fine. It’s not happening to you, the stars whisper, theirvoices similar to mine, colder, inhuman.You’re just watching. You’re safe.
I close my eyes in the dark, my real eyes, the ones that exist outside the body on the bed, and wait for the apathy to swallow the last of the fear.
For a moment, I’m a ghost tethered to a corpse, waiting for the string to finally snap.
But it doesn’t.
And the boy who looks like me is thrashing. He’s fighting, trying to breathe.
“Shut up,” I murmur. “Shut the fuck up. Stop fighting. It’ll only hurt more if you fight.”
His big green eyes, the ones I didn’t kill yet, are staring up at me, welling with a pool of tears.
“Helpme,” he says, the words carried on a low, haunted rasp. “Tell Mom and Dad to help me.”
“No one will ever help you. Just stay still and put up with it.”
