Page 25 of Palingenesis

I might be screaming, but I can’t tell.

The pain from my ankle finally buckles my knee radiating up my thigh, and I crash to the floor.

A tsking tongue rings across my brain like hot coals, cutting off as quick as it came, but leaving the burn of its path behind. I grasp at my temples, digging the heels of my palms into my skull. It does nothing to stop any of it, though I can’t explain why I hoped it would.

Me and hope… We haven’t exactly seen eye to eye for a long fucking time.

I recall the exact moment that it flickered, slowly dimming until the flame snuffed out.

A sob lodges in my throat and try as I might to forget, to stuff it so far down that it accompanies me to my grave, I know that I never will.

Flashes of the memory fill my head behind a film of static and instead of laying on this matted carpet, I’m in a fancy restaurant. My clothes aren’t torn and bloodied, they’re pressed and creased just right. My curls are tamed artfully instead of a knotted mess, and my heart pounds heavily in anticipation, excitement, in place of fear.

I remember smiling at Henry when he joined me at our table that night. Smitten while he ordered for us both, taking control and decision right out of my hands. I’d found it refreshing to not have to worry about the prices on the menu, the bill stacking up with each item added.

I felt taken care of for once.

Secure.

Until he snuck away to the bathroom for a quickie that hadn’t included me.

I’d asked him about it, begged for honesty. I even swore I didn’t care, I just wanted to know if I’d seen what I saw. If the disheveled waiter coming out right after him had someone else hiding inside, or if it’d been my partner that made him that way.

And that’s when he redirected the focus and asked me to move in with him.

The shock still sits heavy in my chest now.

How naïve of me.

I curl tighter into myself, my back pressing into the wall of this strange labyrinth with tears streaming down my cheeks and any resolve I had left melts away.

My breathing slows.

My pulse calms into a dull lull.

And I just…

I accept it.

Whatever this is that’s happening to me, as I have been for far too fucking long.

Chapter 15

Shannon

Smoke .

The alarming twist of my gut snaps my eyes open, and I hiss at the searing of my retinas against the bright morning sun.

A haze clings to the air, reflecting the streams of light that pour through the open window, casting a glow over the room.

It’s almost … ethereal.

Or would be if I didn’t once again find myself in an unfamiliar space, on a surface I don’t recognize, with a head full of fuzz.

“At least this one’s soft,” I sign with a purse to my lips, taking in the velvety comforter tossed over my shoulders and the silky-smooth sheets beneath me. They’re cool to the touch, except where I have laid.

It’s such a contrast to the clear nightmare I was having of being chased through the dark that my head spins.