Activity

Aydin

I couldn’t stay here. The castle wasn’t going to stop torturing me and I knew I was going to cry and I didn’t want to do it in front of everyone.

With a flash of light and more screaming than I could process, two people flickered into existence. I rolled my eyes. Ever since I came to this place my hallucinations had taken a turn for the ridiculous.

I got up, trying to ignore the cuts on my back stinging with every movement, and slipped into one of the tunnels. People were talking and screaming and there was so much chaos it made my head spin.

I just needed to be alone. I needed it to be quiet, I needed to be able to think clearly again. Everything there was too bright, too loud, too painful.

The darkness accepted me and it was a little easier to breathe. I had no idea where the tunnel led to and I wasn’t about to find out.

I sat down, wincing again as I felt the blood running down my shoulder and along my back. Or not. Who knew.

I was so tired of this. I was so tired of being scared.

So far from the noise the voices blended together and bounced off the walls until I could barely distinguish them. I thought I could hear Quin’s crying above it.

Memories of fire and blood and the smell of burning surfaced and I shoved them down like my life depended on it.

It wasn’t working. I dug my nails into my palms and tried to swallow the tears that were quickly drowning me. I couldn’t cry, not here, not yet.

It was all too much. I buried my face in my sleeve, trying to muffle the sound. I couldn’t let them hear it. I didn’t want company and I didn’t want sympathy. I’d always managed without it and that would never change.

The sobs made the cuts on my back pull open even further, sending pain shooting through me.

It was happening again and I couldn’t change it. I wouldn’t change it. I’d had the opportunity to make different choices, to rewrite one of the most painful parts of my life, and I had chosen not to. And I would keep choosing that until the day I died.

I would make the world a little easier for someone else. Perhaps one day I could prevent that someone ended up like me.