12. Casandra
Past
Sleep is a cruel joke. I toss and turn under the suffocating weight of three blankets, my body trapped in a vicious paradox—sweating from the heat of the room, yet shivering from a bone-deep, glacial cold that feels like ice water circulating through my veins.
The clock on the nightstand glows a faint, mocking 00:14. I am officially twenty years old, and I have never felt more wretched in my life.
Along with the freezing chills, a ravenous, gnawing hunger has clawed its way into my stomach over the last hour.
It makes no sense. I ate a massive bowl of pasta before bed, but right now, my stomach feels like a bottomless, empty pit, cramping with a desperate need for sustenance.
And then there is the headache. The dull throb from earlier has mutated into a sharp, blinding spike of agony that feels like someone is driving a hot iron rod through the back of my skull, pushing right against my eyeballs.
I can’t take this anymore.
I kick the blankets aside, gasping as the cool air of the apartment hits my skin like a physical slap.
Shivering violently, I wrap my arms around myself and stumble out of bed.
The apartment is bathed in an eerie, silvery twilight, the midnight moon casting long, distorted shadows across the hardwood floor.
I don’t bother turning on the lights; even the faint glow of the streetlamps outside makes my eyes throb with an unbearable, stabbing pain.
I navigate the short hallway by memory, my hands scraping against the walls for balance, and push open the door to the bathroom.
It is a tiny, claustrophobic space—barely one and a half square meters—just large enough to wedge in a toilet and a small pedestal sink.
Above the basin hangs a cheap, plastic medicine cabinet with a mirrored door.
My breath hitches, coming out in ragged, shallow gasps. I can hear the frantic, hyperspeed thumping of my own heart echoing in my ears.
Just grab the ibuprofen and go back to bed, I tell myself, my hands shaking so badly they rattle against the plastic as I pull the mirror door open.
I reach into the dark cabinet, my fingers blindly sweeping past bottles of shampoo and skin creams until they wrap around the familiar blister pack of painkillers. I pop two pills into my mouth, desperate for even an ounce of relief.
With a trembling hand, I push the cabinet door shut.
The mirror swings into place. The silver moonlight from the small bathroom window hits the glass.
I look up.
A gasp of pure horror catches in my throat. The air leaves my lungs entirely, leaving me hollowed out, paralyzed by a violent jolt of terror that floods my entire system.
The face staring back at me is mine, but it isn’t.
The white parts of my eyes are no longer white.
They are a horrific, bruised, bloody red, completely shot through with ruptured color as if every capillary had exploded at once.
But it is the irises that make my stomach plummet into a bottomless void of panic.
My eyes are supposed to be a bright, clear green.
They are black. A deep, solid, infinite void of pitch-black that swallows the light entirely.
The second the visual registers in my brain, a primal, animalistic scream rips from my throat. I recoil so violently that I fall onto the toilet opposite to the sink. The plastic medicine pack flies from my hand, scattering pills across the tile floor.
I scramble out of the bathroom on my hands and knees, sobbing, gasping, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I’m dying, the thought screams through my mind, a frantic, looping siren. Something is eating my brain. A stroke, an aneurysm, a parasite—I am dying.
I collapse against the living room wall, my body shaking so hard I can barely draw air. I need to call an ambulance. I need to find my phone.
Just then I register that someone is throwing their entire weight against the front door of my apartment. The heavy wood groans under the impact.
“Cassie! Open the door!”
The voice is loud, authoritative, and instantly recognizable. It’s Virgil. My father’s long-time business partner, a man who has been a constant fixture in my life since I was a toddler—the closest thing I have to an uncle. Why is he here?
“Cassie! I know you’re in there! Open the door right now!”
I pull my knees to my chest, burying my face in my hands. I can’t open the door. My eyes are red and black. I look like a monster from a nightmare. I look like a corpse.
“I’m... I’m sick, Virgil!” I screech, my voice cracking with hysteria. “Don’t come in! Call an ambulance! Something is wrong with my eyes, I can’t see straight, I’m dying—”
“I’m kicking it down, Cassie. Stand back.”
Before I can even process the warning, a thunderous splintering sound echoes through the small foyer. The deadbolt rips right out of the frame, and the front door flies open, banging violently against the wall.
Virgil steps into the apartment, his massive silhouette blotting out the light from the hallway. But he isn’t alone. Three other figures glide into the small space behind him with a terrifying, synchronized silence.
I instinctively press myself harder against the floor, shielding my face with my arms. “Don’t look at me,” I sob, the tears burning like acid against my cheeks. “Don’t look at my eyes. Virgil, please, call an ambulance...”
In a flash of movement so fast my eyes can’t even track it, Virgil is on his knees in front of me. He reaches out, his large, calloused hand gripping my chin with an unyielding strength.
“Let me see them,” he commands, his voice tight, stripped of its usual jovial warmth.
“No! Stop!” I thrash, trying to pull away, but his grip is a steel vice.
“Cassie, look at me. Open your eyes.”
I blink, terrified of what he will see, terrified of the revulsion that will inevitably cross his face. I look at him.
Virgil’s eyes widen slightly. He lets out a dark, low curse under his breath. “Damn it. It already started.”
“What... ?” My voice trembles, my mind fracturing under a wave of absolute confusion. It started? What started? Why isn’t he screaming? Why isn’t he pulling out his phone to call emergency services?
Before I can demand an answer, Virgil gently but firmly hooks his hands under my armpits and hoists me to my feet. He nudges me further into the center of the living room, clearing the narrow entryway.
The three people who followed him step into the dim light of my apartment, and even through my panic and the blinding throb of my headache, their presence strikes me.
There are two men and one woman. They are all dressed in sleek, utilitarian black gear—high-grade tactical pants, fitted long-sleeve shirts, and combat boots.
The clothes are casual enough that you wouldn’t think twice if you passed them on a dark street, but practical enough to suggest they are built for extreme physical violence.
All three of them possess a dangerous, predatory aura.
If I wasn’t in so much p, I’d find it amusing how they stand in my cramped Swedish apartment like a highly trained strike team.
They don’t say a word. They just fan out, monitoring the broken door and the windows with sharp, unblinking eyes.
“Drink this. All of it,” Virgil says, drawing my attention back to him. He presses a small, dark glass bottle into my trembling hand.
I look down at it, the liquid inside thick and nearly black in the moonlight. “What is it? Virgil, I need a doctor—”
“This is the only thing that is going to save your life right now, Cassie,” he interrupts, his tone fierce but laced with an undercurrent of deep anxiety. “I have never lied to you. Trust me. Drink it.”
I look into his eyes. This man has carried me on his shoulders, bought me ice cream, and been tethered to my family for as long as I can remember.
I am so profoundly tired. My head is a localized supernova of pain, my body is freezing, and my mind is fracturing from horror. I don’t have the strength to fight him.
I unscrew the cap with shaking fingers, lift the bottle to my lips, and tilt my head back.
The moment the liquid hits my tongue, a shockwave ripples through my senses. It is the sweetest, most intoxicating thing I have ever tasted. It has a heavy, rich weight to it, sliding down my throat like liquid velvet. It tastes like life itself.
The effect is instantaneous, a miracle in a bottle.
The best way I can describe it is like watching an empty, parched cup being slowly filled with water, rising steadily to the absolute rim, perfectly full without a single drop overflowing. A profound sense of completeness washes over me.
The agonizing spike behind my eyes vanishes in a fraction of a second, leaving my mind crystalline and clear.
The bone-deep, shivering cold evaporates, replaced by a sudden, blossoming warmth that spreads from my chest out to my fingertips.
My stomach stops cramping; the wild, animalistic hunger is completely pacified.
I let out a long, shuddering breath, staring at the empty bottle in awe. “What... what was that?”
But the relief is short-lived.
Almost immediately, a heavy, suffocating wave of exhaustion crashes over me. My limbs turn to lead. The living room begins to spin, the silhouettes of the strike team blurring into dark streaks.
Panic flares one last time. He drugged me. The thought cuts through the haze, heavy with a sense of betrayal. Why would he drug me?
My knees buckle. Virgil catches me before I hit the floor, his strong arms wrapping around me as the world rapidly dissolves into pitch black.
***
I wake up with a gasp, my lungs expanding fully as I sit straight up in bed.
There is no pain. There is no cold. I feel lighter, stronger, and more profoundly refreshed than I ever have in my entire life, as if I have just surfaced from a thousand years of perfect, undisturbed sleep.
I blink against the ambient light, expecting to see my small IKEA-furnished apartment.
Instead, my eyes take in a sight that makes my breath catch all over again.
I am lying in an unfamiliar, king-sized four-poster bed made of dark, intricately carved mahogany, draped in heavy, emerald-green velvet sheets that feel like pure silk against my skin.
The room around me is massive, boasting soaring vaulted ceilings and stone walls draped in priceless, ancient tapestries.
Elaborate wrought-iron chandeliers hang from above, and the furniture looks like it was stolen directly from a royal wing of the Louvre.
“Welcome home, honey.”
The deep, familiar voice cuts through the silence of the grand room.
My head snaps to the right. Sitting in a plush, high-backed velvet armchair next to the bed is my father.
He is dressed in a tailored charcoal suit, his arms crossed over his chest.
His expression is grave, his jaw tight, but as his eyes lock onto mine, a wave of profound, soft relief washes over his features.
I stare at him, my mind spinning as I try to connect the dots between my now broken door in Sweden and this medieval room.
“Dad?” I whisper, my voice echoing slightly against the stone walls. “Where are we? What is happening?”
He sighs, dropping his arms and leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He looks at me with an intensity that makes my soul grow entirely still.
“It’s time we have a talk, Casandra.”