The hallway blurred past us, the door still hanging open behind me, dark red blood staining the floor in a way I refused to look at properly because if I did, if I stopped for even a second to actuallysee it,I knew I wouldn’t be able to take another step.
We were outside before my body caught up to my mind. Cold air hit my face like a thin blade drawn across skin. The metallic taste in my mouth refusing to leave, like it had settled somewhere deep. Branches tore at my sleeves as we pushed into the treeline, the ground uneven beneath my feet, mud catching at my shoes, slipping, catching again, breath already burning in my chest and throat, but I couldn’t slow down. Because Zwierek didn’t slow down, and I wasn’t about to be the one who fell behind.
It was dark between the trees. The kind of dark that swallows dimension and distance, where everything looks the same, no matter how far you go. We kept going anyway. I don’t know for how long. Minutes, maybe longer. Time didn’t feel like something that applied anymore.
Eventually, the pace broke, like something in both of us hit a limit at the same time. We stumbled into stillness, hands on our knees, both of us bent forward, lungs dragging in air that didn’t feel like enough, no matter how much of it I took. My pulse still hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat, in my temples, everywhere at once. That’s when it hit.
The sounds he had made, bones crushing, blood splashing. The cold heft of the metal in my hand. The way his body had… given up. I straightened too quickly, dizziness hitting immediately, my vision narrowing for a second before snapping back, clearer.Way too fucking clear, like everything had been turned up too high.
“Fuck…”It came out before I could stop it. Rough and too loud.
“Fuck… what the fuck…”
My hands were shaking. I didn’t remember deciding to look at them, but I was staring at them like they belonged to someone else.
“I…”My voice broke, breath catching wrong in my chest.
“What the fuck did I… What did I do…”
Zwierek didn’t answer, and somehow that made it worse.
“Say something!”I snapped, looking at him now, something feral and desperate pushing up under my ribs.
“What the fuck do we do? What do we, what the fuck was that…”
He was watching me. And something about that, about howstillhe was while everything in me felt like it was coming apart, something in me snapped sideways.
“This is your fault.”
The words came fast, too fast, but once they were out, they didn’t stop.
“This is… this is because of you,”I continued, voice rising, hands coming up, gesturing without direction.
“You… you put this in my head! All of it, all of that shit you kept saying, all those fucking books!”He didn’t say anything, not immediately.
“You’re fucking insane,”I yelled, stepping closer without thinking, adrenaline still burning through me in a way that didn’t have anywhere to go.
“You’ve been pushing this, you wanted this!”
That’s when he moved.
I barely registered it before I was on the ground. The collision knocked the air out of me, leaves and damp earth pressing into my back. Something thorned digging into my shoulder as hisweight came down over me, pinning me there before I could even process how we got there.
“Say that again.”
What disturbed me was how quiet his voice remained. It was tight, like something being held just under the surface. I struggled. Reflex, pure panic, anger. All of it tangled together into something messy and useless as I tried to shove him off, but he didn’t move. Didn’t even shift.
“You think this is me?”he asked, leaning closer. His grip tightening just enough to make the point without needing to force it.
“You think I did that?”
I snapped back immediately.
“Yes!”breath uneven, chest heaving under him.
“You! You fucking –”He cut my sentence off.
“You did it.”
