I turned before I could think about it any longer, my legs moved on their own, fast, way too fast. I didn’t grab anything, didn’t look back, I just ran out the door, into the air and I didn’t stop. It didn’t take long before the ground changed under my feet. The road disappeared behind me, swallowed by trees that stood too close, branches clawing over each other, choking out the sky.
I didn’t slow down.
My legs kept moving long after they should’ve given out, long after the pain stopped meaning anything. Branches tore at my arms, caught my skin, snapped back against me, but my body pushed through it without slowing. My breath came in broken pulls, my chest fighting to keep up with the brutal pace my body refused to drop. I just kept going and at some point, the trees loosened.
The forest opened into a small clearing, like something hidden, something the rest of the world had forgotten to touch. Light filtered through the branches above, soft and fractured, spilling down in uneven patches that moved with the wind.
White flowers covered the ground, heavy blooms hanging downward, their petals long and delicate, almost too fragile-looking to belong somewhere like this. Some of them brushed the grass, others swayed gently in the air, as if they were breathing. The light from the sun caught them just right, made them glow. It shouldn’t have felt like that, not after everything that had happened. It shouldn't have been that calm. I stopped because my body forced me to. One second I was moving, the next my legs just refused to carry me any farther. The world tilted when I stopped, the ground beneath me turning strange and unstable in a way that made everything feel unreal for a second. My breath stuttered, chest tightening as something cold started creeping in under my skin. I swayed where I stood, blinking.
Once, twice.
My vision dragged at the edges, blurring into one big mass of nothingness. That’s when it hit me. The blood, there was too much of it. I looked down, my shirt dark and soaked through, sticking to my skin in a way that felt wrong now that I noticed it. My hand came up instinctively, pressing against my side. Wet. It hadn’t stopped. A dull, distant thought formed somewhere in the back of my head.
How much?
How long had it been like this?
I couldn’t tell. Time slipped somewhere between the house and here, stretched out and collapsed in on itself until it didn’t make sense anymore. My legs gave out before I could think any further. I dropped down into the grass, the impact softer than it looked, like the ground was catching me instead of hitting back. My hands pressed into the earth to steady myself, but even that felt off. Like my body wasn’t fully connected to what it was doing.
The air smelled different there, cleaner in a way.
Damp soil, something faintly sweet from the flowers, warm sunlight sitting lightly on my skin where it broke through the trees. I could hear birds. I sat there for a moment, trying to breathe properly, trying to steady the way everything was slipping sideways inside me, but it didn’t work. It just kept getting heavier. My arms felt weak, my hands didn’t hold me up the way they should’ve, so I let go. Lowered myself down slowly, the grass bending under me as I lay back, staring up through the broken canopy above.
The light shifted when the branches moved, flickering softly across my vision. Everything felt far away. The birds kept singing, but it started to sound different, muted almost. Like it was coming from somewhere I couldn’t quite reach. My chest rose, fell, slower now. Each breath heavier than the last. My eyes drifted to the side, catching the white flowers again, the way they hung there so untouched by everything else.
That place, it didn’t feel real.
It felt like something you weren’t supposed to find. My body sank deeper into the ground, muscles loosening without my permission, strength slipping out of me piece by piece. My fingers twitched once in the grass, then stilled. The sound of the birds faded further, softened, until it was barely there at all. My eyes stayed open for a moment, then heavier, and the thought occurred in my head, as natural as anything else.
This is a good place to die.
It didn’t feel sad, just true, peaceful even. My gaze drifted one last time across the clearing, the light, the flowers, the stillness of it all and then everything went quiet.
The Damnation
Chapter 37
That clearing, it really was a beautiful place to die.
Light coming down through the trees like it had nowhere else to be. Those white flowers hanging there, heavy, almost brushing the ground, moving just enough to remind you the world was still breathing. Yeah, it would’ve been perfect. So imagine my disappointment when I woke up, hours later, still fucking alive.
I didn’t even move at first. Just lay there, staring up through the branches, waiting for it to correct itself. Like maybe I’d made some kind of mistake and my body just needed a second to catch up, but it didn’t. I closed my eyes again, properly this time, tried to lean back into it. Into that peaceful stillness I’d slipped into before. I forced myself to go still, to let everything go slack, like maybe if I just stoppedenough,my body would finally get the message to die.
Spoiler: it didn’t work.
Nothing happened, just me lying there like an idiot, pretending I had any control over when this ends. I probably would’ve died if I’d just stayed down. If I’d just left it alone and let my body do what it was already starting to do, but I’m not built for that. Never have been. Even when it comes to dying, apparently I don’t have the patience for it.
So I pushed myself up instead.
Hands in the grass, digging into the soil like I needed something to hold onto. My arms trembled under my own weight enough that it annoyed me, but I forced myself upright anyway. The air had changed. It wrapped around me differently now, cooler against my skin, creeping over the places where the blood had dried and pulled tight. A faint breeze moved through the clearing and brushed over me, like it was testing if I was still there. Iwas, unfortunately. I sat there for a moment, hunched forward, elbows on my knees, trying to get my head to catch up with the rest of me.
Everything lagged when I moved, like the world didn’t quite follow along fast enough, but there was something back in my body now, enough to not stay down. My legs held, but they didn’t feel right. There was a hesitation in them, like they weren’t convinced this was a good idea, like they were waiting for me to drop again. I stayed there, swaying slightly, staring ahead at nothing in particular, feeling my pulse in places I didn’t want to notice, then I moved.
One step, then another, no destination or direction. I just walked. Because sitting there any longer, in that clearing, in that stillness, it felt too close to something I had already failed to do and I couldn’t stand that. So I left it behind without looking back, pushing through the trees again, not knowing where I was going, just knowing I couldn’t stay so I kept moving.
One foot in front of the other, like my body had found a pace it could survive in. The forest didn’t fight me this time, it just let me pass through it. Branches brushing my arms, leaves catching on the dried blood on my skin, pulling at it in small, irritating tugs. I could feel it crack when I moved, tight and sticky, but I didn’t wipe it off. Didn’t feel like it belonged to me anymore anyway.
My head felt clearer, things sat where they were supposed to instead of crashing into each other all at once, and because of that, I could actually think about it. About what happened at the house, about him. I swallowed, my throat dry in a way that had nothing to do with thirst.
