Chapter 32 Braiden
There’s nothing but suffocating darkness, pressing down on me from every side.
The stench of rot hangs heavy in the air, it’s sickly and clings to my throat.
My chest tightens as I try to breathe, and the air feels rancid, as if I’m swallowing decay itself.
I try to shift, even the smallest movement…
I can’t. My limbs are pinned, my body locked tight in place.
But, the silence is worse. There’s no sound, no hint of life, just my heartbeat, loud and frantic in my ears.
Reminding me I’m still alive, but only barely.
All I can think about is escaping. Then… something shifts.
The pressure around me doesn’t just crush, it cradles.
The suffocating dark no longer feels like a prison, but a second skin.
One that slides over me as though it’s always been mine.
My pulse, which was frantic a moment ago, steadies.
Then a surge of something I couldn’t begin to explain hits me.
I can feel it wriggling its way under my skin, making a home within me as if it belongs.
It doesn’t reject me. It welcomes me. It’s whispers curl into my ears like smoke:
“Ours. You’re ours.”
I should be terrified. I should be clawing at the walls, screaming until my throat is raw.
Instead, I feel… more alive. As if this shadow-soaked world has been waiting for me.
Some buried part of me, the part I’ve never wanted to look at too closely, stirs awake. It whispers the truth I can’t ignore.
B'fhéidir nach mbaineann mé leis an eitleán básmhar, b'fhéidir go mbaineann mé anseo. (Maybe I don’t belong on the mortal plane, maybe I belong here.)
Heat burns under my skin, it’s not fire, it’s a crawling sensation.
It feels as if thousands of tiny legs race frantically through my veins.
My bones ache as though they’re being hollowed out, made into instruments for a song I don’t yet know the tune of.
The darkness whispers, not with words, but with need.
It doesn’t ask permission. It sinks deep, carving itself into my marrow, until my heart no longer feels like it beats for me.
Every thud is slower, echoing with a resonance I’ve never known, as if I’m keeping time with something far older and far hungrier.
Then it starts. My teeth ache, my nails scrape against stone and leave gouges where flesh alone shouldn’t.
Shadows cling to me, not around me, they cling to me, latching on like parasites, fusing with my thoughts.
A snarl claws its way up my throat, and I don’t recognize the sound.
It’s too low, too savage to be human. The terrifying part isn’t that it comes from me, it’s that it fits, as though I was made for this rot, as if it has always been waiting for me to stop pretending.
A scream rips out of my chest, raw and ragged, but it only bounces back at me, mocking.
My fists hammer uselessly at the walls until my knuckles split open, hot blood slicking the stone.
Suddenly something inside me snaps. A surge of power explodes through my veins, too wild to contain, too violent to resist. My vision burns red, and my muscles coil as if they’ll tear free of my bone.
Rage that’s not mine alone, boils up, screaming for release.
I slam my fist into the wall again and this time it shatters.
The rock screams apart, splintering under the force.
Dust and debris rain over me and it doesn’t deter me, it only makes me hit harder.
Every strike is a promise. Every crack in the stone is a vow.
No cage. No grave. No monster will ever hold me.
With one final roar, I burst through, dragging myself into the night.
Moonlight slashes across my naked skin, and I turn back to see the ruin behind me.
My gaze lands on an old tomb, collapsed and broken.
My chest heaves and my hands drip blood and dust. However, all I can feel is the rage still pounding in my veins.
I try to remember what happened, how I got here, and it hits me.
A spark of light in the shadow of my mind, Croía.
The air shimmers, crackling with the force of something I can barely contain.
Shadows recoil, twisting against the pull of my fury, and still her face burns in my vision.
I want to unleash everything, to obliterate the world that dared cage me, but at the same time, the thought of her stops me.
Each heartbeat is a war between the destructive force and the impossible tether she has on me.
Kree-ah. (Croía) The name burns like acid in my mind, twisting everything else into nothing. Where the hell are you?
I don’t care what it takes. Walls, locks, veils, none of it means shite. If she’s trapped, someone’s going to pay. If it’s me who must tear the world apart to reach her… then so be it.
I can feel her in flashes, moments of her scent, the way she moves, the way her presence stabs straight through me.
I can’t… I won’t let her slip away. Every thought, every beat of my heart is consumed by her.
My world collapses without her near, and I’d burn every last piece of it just to find her, just to make sure she’s safe.
I search the void inside me, plunging my senses into every shadowed corner of my being.
It’s as if I’m diving into a black river that has no bottom, each pulse of thought echoing back like a distant drum.
Somewhere in that emptiness, faint as a whisper, I feel her.
Her presence threads through the nothingness, pulling at me, teasing me with a closeness I can’t yet grasp.
Every nerve in my body hums with it. I strain harder, letting my awareness stretch beyond the physical, into the cold, hollow spaces between worlds.
I brush against the echo of her distress and the trace of something deeper, something primal.
I don’t just want her. I need her.
If the void fights back, if it resists, I’ll tear through it. I’ll follow her thread through every shadow, every fragment of this emptiness, until I find her.
Ní choinneoidh aon achar, aon bhac, mé uaithi. (No distance, no barrier, will keep me from her.)