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With a deep breath and all my misgivings overwhelming my mind, I join them.
We arrive at the third pinnacle, the final cliff where Zenya must embark on her greatest trial yet—armed with nothing more than her bone needle and the sand. And us acting as mere allies.
But will I prove to be an ally or a reminder of her greatest nightmare?
None can predict the future, but if my suspicions are confirmed, it was the worst night of her life. Would that I could spare her, but perhaps…
She shivers, a chill snaking up her spine as she undoubtedly imagines the memory.
After one glance exchanged at each of us, Zenya takes a deep breath, creeps one bare foot beyond her white gown, and steps off the edge of the cliff. She falls like the most beautiful lost specter.
We fall with her.
She is sleeping when they come.
Drunken laughter shatters the serenity of the forest. It was her first time camping alone in an off-the-grid campground, isolated and barren of other campers.
They followed her. Stalked her.
Rage simmers in my blood as the stumbling footsteps of the college stalkers move for her tent. Morpheus is equally wrathful, his shadows swarming around his bulging wings, clenched fist at his side. Helplessness claws through me.
Present Zenya watches from the shadows. Her heart pounds so hard in her chest, it echoes like an organ beat, resonating through my entire being. All her instinct screams at her to wake her past self and run. But she can’t change the past.
If she tries again, Death will come for her.
I feel every tremor of past Zenya’s fear, the raw terror that grips her soul this night. The horror in her eyes as she is wrenched from her tent, her screams muffled by rough hands.
The stalkers, their faces twisted with cruel intent, drag her deeper into the woods. They invoke her father’s name—call her a ‘witch’, ‘bad seed’, their sole motive to rid the world of a future monster when they were therealmonsters.
They strip her.
Silent anguish writes itself all over present Zenya as she crashes to her knees, her eyes weeping long-suppressed tears she hid behind her tattoos and travels.
They tie her to a tree.
Fury spears through me because their actions are too monstrous to articulate. Pieces of Zenya break off. I witness the loss of humanity, the death of those pieces as she does. I witness how she shatters beneath the gravity of their drunken abuse.
Advancing to present Zenya, I stand behind her, offering her my skeletal hand, what little I may with my presence. She wastes no time in gripping them so hard, the bones break. I cherish thepain, worshiping the torment for the sake of sharing her deeper pain.
When past Zenya’s eyes turn vacant while they use her, I flick my gaze to my brother and Hecate, a fraction of mending through the shattering. They weave their dark magic, manipulating past Zenya’s reality.
As the trauma unfolds, her mind begins to fracture.
Beastie surfaces intermittently, her jaw tightening, her eyes narrowing with a darkness only visible to us. The fierce protector fronts in and out of the trauma, taking the worst of the abuse. Her strength shields Zenya.
Morpheus’s whispers intertwine with Hecate’s incantations, drawing Zenya into a dissociative state. She drifts into a lucid dream-like state, her consciousness flickering like a fragile candle. The horrors become fragmented, blurred by delusions and illusions that Morpheus conjures, each one a merciful escape from reality.
Their visions of dark horses gallop through her fractured visions, their shadows blending with the surreal imagery of Hecate’s hounds—now playful puppies yipping as they surround her, creating a stark contrast to the terror.
Present Zenya watches the events unfold, her white-knuckled fingers clenching with the need to do something. Her lips part, and I know a silent scream pierces the fabric of her mind. Her breaths turn ragged.
Gods, she doubles over, body seizing—the echoes of the pain and abuse resurrected. Each tremor quaking through her testifies to her inner battle, her entire soul aching and tearing with her horror.
I sense every nuance of her emotional turmoil. Her desperation and fear smite me like a physical force, a pressure against my chest, splintering my bones, and bleeding my heart. An unrelenting reminder of the pain I can’t fully erase.
She holds herself together, impossible from the emotional sutures splitting—like she’s trying to dam the blood flow when it’s already gushing a well on the ground. She can’t contain the sorrow. It’s a cold, dark aura, and if I could, I would take the pain into myself and relive it for eternity.
The darkness is crushing her.
