Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ESTEE
T heo, where are you?
Orix left me to suffer alone, and while I thought I had him right where I wanted, the passing hours have begun to blend into an agonizing haze. Before there was only silence when he was gone, now the emptiness is punctuated by the howls of broken souls that haunt the darkness around me. Their mournful cries echo, filling the quiet with despair.
They sing a melody of suffering, a reminder that I’m as trapped in this misery as they are, alone in a way I never thought possible. Their grief tugs at something deep within me, tempting me to surrender, to sink with them. There’s a twisted beauty in it, a fragile, haunting allure to simply giving up.
Maybe it would be easier. Easier than hoping. Easier than waiting, clinging to the fraying thread of a bond I don’t even know if Theo can feel while I’m here. A darkness as thick as death presses in around me, and I’m so, so tired. My strength seeps away with every drop of blood that drips from my body, pooling onto the stone beneath me, swallowed whole by this wretched realm.
The pull of oblivion is so strong that I begin to give myself over, sinking deeper into that endless void. But just as I’m about to let go, a spark flares within me, fragile yet defiant—a glint of light in this suffocating darkness.
Theo.
That tether, faint and almost indistinguishable, flickers within my mind, a pulse of life that refuses to extinguish. The bond I’d once doubted and pushed away now feels like my only salvation, my only reason to hold on. I can’t explain it, I don’t even fully understand it, but I feel him—somewhere out there, searching, desperate, determined. It’s a weak, unwinding piece of thread, but it’s real. It’s him .
With a shuddering breath, I reach out, pouring every ounce of strength I have left into that fragile bond. My silent plea becomes a scream in my mind, aching and desperate.
Please, Theo. I know you can find me. I’m right here. Don’t give up on me.