Beneath Shadows and Secrets

♔ 𝕹𝔦𝔫𝔢 ♔

♔ 𝔑𝔦𝔯𝔞 ♔

The fear of being trapped had cemented itself solidly in my chest. For all they tried to comfort me, when Sloan or Cenred sat opposite me on the floor in the corridor, I frenzied into a raging panic, one unable to be doused. Seeing them was a blaring reminder that I could not leave, and they could not enter. Sometimes, when it came to me harming myself, or the powers I had no control over surfaced with threatening intent, Sloan pushed her magic into the room to sedate it. Sedate me. It was what I considered to be the only reprieve I received in this torturous life. I let it happen, and asked her for the relief on many occasions. Each time, though it was with sadness in her eyes, she granted me that single wish, for it was all that she could offer me.

For those days, Sloan fell asleep many times pressing herself against the shield, offering a comfort I abnegated. It did very little to help my lachrymose disposition, but that did not stop her. She stayed with me until I had finished crying, and laid myself beside her, the wraith barrier all that stopped us from touching. Her days were spent here, and she was only gone when Cenred returned from his days away and requested to take her place.

I have the proclivity to believe he did so, not only for my own benefit, but for hers too. So that she might rest on a bed, rather than a hard floor, or wash herself, or eat. After a few days, her appearance was almost as unctuous as mine, for I had avoided bathing and sleeping for as long as my body could manage. To do those things, it would mean being alone, and while my fear of being trapped was horrifying, my fear of being alone was much, much worse.

Over the past few days, I have begun to feel different. Before, I would let that fear fester, rip my gut to shreds, force me to vomit and cry and shiver and panic. Now, I have harnessed it. I have moulded it, knotted it so tightly that it sits in the pit of my being, and every time it threatens to unravel, I smother it with anger. Each time tears prick my eyes, I mutter all the ways I wish to hurt Zaire. Every time my body begins to rock, I list those that have deceived or betrayed me. For each wound I inflict upon myself, I imagine what worse ones I will inflict upon others. So suddenly, that sadness, that fear, becomes anger, and that is an emotion I find far easier to contend with. That is an emotion that doesn't eat me from the inside out, but fuels me, even when nothing else will.

My body unfurls from the floor, eyes blinking back the exhaustion that refuses to abate. My body aches, promising bruising along my arm, leg, and hip, which have been settled on the floor for hours. My neck is cramped, and despite the warmth of imposing summer, I shiver. It is less rest, but more the overcoming of exhaustion. I do not sleep, I pass out. The same as when Sloan sedates me. It is hardly the sleep I need, but a blissful unconsciousness for a short few hours. I blink back the remnant of my impromptu nap, and stare at the empty space of the corridor. The door is open, and Sloan is not there.

I try not to panic; she has most likely gone to relieve herself or find the both of us food as she tries to encourage me to eat, but still my heart stutters with worry. I never hated being alone before. I would hunt all day in only my own company, and even here, when I was first taken from Cracuria, I much preferred days in solitary. They were choices, however, and having it taken from me makes me despise loneliness with severity. I do not fear being alone. I hate it. The anger within me returns with red hot heat.

With trembling arms, I push my stiff muscle until I am sat, and then rely on atrophying legs to stand. My body is collapsing in on itself, and I do not know if it is because of the strain that I am forcing it under, or the way this power eats at me, from the inside out.

It has worsened. Now, it has grown from a nagging reminder to a gnawing pain. Like when you are hungry, and you feel hollow from it, yet your stomach is brimming with nausea. The little flares of power I allow to be expelled in the wisps of darkness are not enough. When I call them back, it seems to beg for more. It constantly stirs in the pit of my stomach and reaches to coil around my lungs and heart. It is there, always, and now burdening me so that most of the time, I sit with a firm palm splayed over my sternum or stomach, urging it to stop.

It is going to kill me. Or someone else. It is aching to be used. Desperate to show me the destruction it is capable of.

I look down at my hands. When I bring the darkness forward, my veins darken, as though it is those which it flows through. My skin cobwebs with black, crawling towards the tips of my fingers, until each tip of them is blackened, like I have dipped them in tar. The darkness comes then, first in small wisps, then ropes, twisting around one another, slithering up my arms, spreading their poison all over my body. When I seep with the power, I restrain it again, urging it back to be contained.

It resists, screeching out for more, but I ignore it. Just like I feign ignorance in the way my chest seems to vibrate with its anger. More. It wants more than I am willing to give.

I scrunch up my features, willing the pain to subside, but it only worsens. It is going to kill me – all this power bottled up in my withering frame is going to kill me. I need help. I need someone to help me.

"Sloan." I call out in a feeble whimper. I clutch at the agony in my chest, my breathing turning erratic as I battle through the aching within me. I'm panting. So much so, my vision begins to speckle. No – not again. I need to get out.

I pace myself, breathing deep through my nose no matter how much it burns my lungs, and expelling the air slowly through my mouth. Calm. Stay calm. The mantra repeats itself in my head, repeatedly. Think of something else. I do as my conscience advises, looking out to the corridor.

I picture the shield as something tangible, that I can see. Glass, opaque, but what breaks so easily. It begins it the corner, a chip in its formidability. With pressure placed upon its wound, cracks splinter over the surface. They snap out quick, spreading across the glass like a disease. They cover every inch, until the glass is no longer transparent, but white with vulnerability. Like one strong gale of wind would disintegrate it to dust. That is what I imagine next. A force, battering its strength on the cracked glass, so that it erupts, shattering from a sheet into a puddle of dusted shards at my feet. Freedom. Anger feeds my next thought. The destruction I would deliver with following my release from here.

The corridor ripples. Not the corridor – everything. The space which I am within.

For a moment, I think I am imagining it. A delirium, that is bound to set me on edge. Except, it is only the walls that quiver with motion. And not the corridor, but the shield in the space between me and it. I approach it with caution, reaching it just as it stills, muting itself back to invisibility.

With one hand still pressed to my chest, I lift the other to lay my palm on the barrier. My power opens, the roaring of it settling to a low hum, and my hand warms comfortably at the contact.

Break it.

The voice is not my conscience. It is something else, something more, but I listen.

I stare at the space where my hand rests, melting it against the wall of nothing, and I picture it again. The crumbling of my prison.

This time, it is quicker, and more ferocious. It is still glass, but this time, suffering the blows of magnitude, as it cracks and fractures in several places. The fissures stretch from one infliction to the next, each fracture crunching as they split further. More and more, until the glass remains standing out of sheer tenacity. It does not survive the weight of my hand as I push towards it.

I expect it will collapse with a crash, but when it shatters, it is nothing more than a tinkle of noise. It is like dust, falling in a single sheet, piling like freshly laid snow at my feet. Around the skirting of the room, and along the threshold of the door.

It could be my imagination, Yet, as though a hand has been lifted from over my nose and mouth, I can breathe again. It staggers me, and the hand that remains in the air snaps to brace myself against the door. My hand slides further across it than it ever could before.

I edge closer with prudence, my feet nudging through the glass which remains on the floor. Not my imagination. Real. It is real.

Run.

My body moves out of the room, almost in a trance. I'm out. I got myself out.

Run.

Insistence. Demand. Pleading.

So, I run.

———

She's out.
And you all thought things were going to get better from here.