Chapter 20
I’m alone, but this strange house feels odd and too still, like its waiting for something terrible to happen.
I take a few tiptoes forward, the floorboards groaning under my bare feet like they’re warning me to turn back and stay safe in the bedroom.
But once I find a bathroom, I stagger inside it instead and lunge for the sink. After frantically turning the rusted taps, it gurgles and spits before releasing a stream of brown, filthy water, the old pipes creaking in protest.
I don’t care, I cup it with trembling hands anyway and drink like a dying animal, the metallic, rotten taste coating my tongue.
It scrapes down my throat and claws at my empty stomach, but I keep gulping until I’m coughing and spluttering on it.
I splash the icy water over my face, trying to wake myself up, trying to force my way out of this dream.
This isn’t real. It can’t be real. It’s a fucking nightmare. Some kind of twisted paralysis and he is my sleep demon. I’m still asleep somewhere. I have to be.
When I finally lift my head and stare into the smeared, dirt-streaked mirror, the girl looking back at me is a stranger.
My face is hollowed out, cheeks sunken, with eyes too broad and shaded. My hair hangs in filthy, tangled ropes, and my skin has the waxy, bloodless pallor of a corpse.
I don’t recognize her. I don’t recognize me.
My fingers slowly rise to my chest, tracing the black tally marks burned into my skin, and they pulse faintly under my touch like something alive.
Sixty-two days.
What does that even mean? What is this thing living inside me?
My mind begins to fracture, spiralling out of control.
What happened to Mattie? The girls? Were they ever real, or did he make me see them too? Am I still in that street under that pig? Am I fucking already dead?
And then the worst memory floods back in.
The way he invaded me, the way he reached inside my body and forced it to betray me. I couldn’t stop it, and I couldn’t fight it. My own flesh turned against me while he watched above me, pulling all the strings.
I feel sick and disgusting. Violated in a way I don’t have words for.
They told me I would never feel pleasure again after that night.
They said my body was too ruined, too broken, and that the parts of me capable of feeling anything good had been cut away and taken forever.
And yet here comes this huge, monstrous entity, and he defies all of it. He reached inside me and ripped catastrophic climaxes out of my body one after another. Forcing my nerves to scream with pleasure I didn’t want, or shouldn’t want.
My own cunt deceived me, gushing and squirting while I let that thing make me come harder than I ever have in my life… while the girls I care about might be dead or suffering somewhere on this island.
The thought makes a violent sob tear out of me.
I grip the edge of the sink so hard my knuckles turn white, staring at the woman in the mirror as fresh tears spill down my cheeks.
He’s still inside me, I can feel it.
And the worst part?
Some sick, twisted part of me is terrified he’ll come back…
…and even more terrified that he won’t.
Suddenly, thin black lines pulse beneath my eyes, crawling into black like spreading worms.
I blink hard, but they don’t fade.
They move. They fucking move.
I start hyperventilating, my heart smashing against my ribs as the streaks slither down my cheeks, branching out like cracks in shattered glass.
My fingers fly up, scraping at my skin as if I can stop it, but the more I touch, the faster they spread.
Then everything begins to dim, a suffocating darkness engulfing the corners first before seeping toward me.
My reflection changes—the veins now snake down my neck, curling around my throat, over my breasts, pulsing like something alive beneath the surface.
My breath shudders, coming out in a cloud of cold fog that drifts against the mirror.
Is he back? Is he watching me?
When I look back toward the mirror, my reflection suddenly smiles back at me.
But I don’t. I’m not smiling.
With expanded eyes, I drag trembling fingers over my cold, blue lips.
My reflection shifts and the light in her eyes flickers out until nothing remains but empty voids. Her face goes blank, mouth slack, staring right into what’s left of my soul.
Then, without warning, she jerks forward, screaming, her mouth opening into a black hole, like it’s unhinging.
I stumble back, the shrill pitch slicing through my skull like a hammer, and I cradle my head.
The glass ripples, distorting, and it’s like she’s inside my skin—something crawling, twisting beneath it, pushing outward.
The mirror fractures in slow motion, spiderweb lines cutting across her face as if the cracks are erupting from within. The glass starts pushing its way out of her skin until there’s thousands of shards covering her face, arms and breasts.
Her head tips back, body straining from the pain, throat stretching, the scream turning guttural and manic.
When her eyes snap back to mine, they are bottomless and alive, her lips curling into a cruel imitation of mine.
“What’s wrong, unless cunt?” my voice echoes from her mouth—low, distorted and demonic. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
My heart pounds so hard I can taste it, tears blurring my vision.
“You see it now, don’t you?” she hisses, smile spreading too wide across her cheeks. “What they did. What they made of us. What we’ve become!”
I can’t speak. I’m frozen.
“You killed us!” she screeches, tone furious, booming through my skull like it’s coming from inside me.
Her features twist, eyes wild with betrayal, and before I can even blink, she slams her face into the glass.
The sound is loud, over and over again, faster, harder, each strike splintering the mirror into a thousand reflections of me. Shards rain down in jagged flashes, but she doesn’t stop.
Her body twitches with every violent blow, each movement too powerful, far too inhuman.
Bright blood blooms across the cracks, rushing down her face—my face—until all I can see is red, flesh, glass and her angry eyes staring through the fractures at me.
“Weak! Bitch! Weak! Bitch! Weak! Bitch!” she repeats, tone deep and dark with each smash.
I finally start to back away, my body trembling so badly it feels like my bones might crack. She continues, each hit more desperate than the last, destroying everything—destroying us.
“Stop,” I whisper breathlessly, my voice barely there, my head shaking in disbelief. “Stop.”
The pounding grows frantic, echoing through the bathroom like a heartbeat turned to war drums, and still she keeps going, consumed by pure rage.
“STOP IT!” I scream, the words tearing from my throat until it feels sore, until it feels like I’m screaming at myself. “FUCKING STOP IT!”
My knees give out, and I collapse, my reflection’s chaos vibrating through the floor, through me. I clutch my head, hands over my ears, rocking back and forth, desperate to drown out the noise and block her out.
“Stop… please stop,” I mutter again and again, voice breaking into weeps. “Stop it… stop it… stop…”