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That must be why my chest feels like it was ripped open, ransacked, then left completely hollow.

“Khaos?” I call out before I can stop myself.

He has my heart, I tell myself. I need it back. That’s all. I just…need it back. I can’t function otherwise.

I don’t want to.

“Khaos?”

Warmth floods my cheeks, like someone’s holding them, but that’s impossible because there’s no one here. Right?

“Are you here?” Please, please, please be here. I don’t want to be here without you. I don’t want to be anywhere without you.

If this is the only place I get to see him, I’ll come every night. I’ll even face her.

She hasn’t shown up yet, so I have time. How much, I don’t know. Not enough, I’m sure.

I become frantic. We don’t have long. She will come and she will ruin everything. She always does.

“Khaos!” I repeat louder, trying in vain to make my voice audible.

“Fall,” I hear beside me, and somehow, without even turning my head, I see him. Khaos. Dream Khaos. Nightmare Khaos. It is him…yet it’s nothing like him. Hazy, not quite corporeal, he’s creepily stationary with his hands in his pockets as he watches me through hooded lids. His mouth is too big, his teeth inside sharp and terrifying.

“Fall now.” His serrated teeth cut into his lips as he speaks, making blood gush out until several red rivers stream down his chin, puddling at his feet that are also larger than normal.

It’s horrifying to look at but I can’t make myself stop. I’d rather see this version of him than none at all.

“Not yet,” I cry before realizing what that warmth on my cheeks is—tears. “Why didn’t you fight for me?”

He can’t hear me though. No one can. Not here, and not out there. Because nobody ever listens to me.

I tell him what I wish I could.

“You said you would. You said you’d fight for me but you didn’t. You didn’t even say anything. You just gave up…on us, on me.” The rest of my body heats, and I try to swing my hand out but it remains by my side. “You walked away! You ran like the fucking thief you are!”

There’s a puddle at my feet now, too, a clear one.

Nightmare Khaos doesn’t so much as blink those slits of his.

“Why? Why didn’t you fight? I wanted you to fight.”

“Fall.”

More blood, more anguish.

“I already did!” I scream. I fell for Khaos, so fucking hard, and look where it got me, alone again. Alone forever. I’ve never known loneliness like this. I thought I did, but no, missing Khaos is its own kind of hell.

I sense her before I see her, but this time, I welcome her ruinous wrath. Come and get me, Mom. This is the only time I have one anyway. This is the only time I have anyone.

Arms out at my sides—down by my sides—I let the inky demon come right up to me, slithering at first, then floating, her red eyes blazing as she looks me over. I know what she sees. I know what everyone sees. The lie.

Khaos was the only one to see past it and now he’s gone.

“I love him,” I tell her, water spraying off my lips and onto hers.

She flinches back from the watery onslaught, then her mouth is opening, big enough to fit around my entire head, her lower jaw not even visible as it blends with the rest of her.

This is horrifying, like I know it is, but it…isn’t. Not to me, not this time. It’s preferable to what I’ve endured already, what I have to endure tomorrow and the next day and the next day and—