kajsa ㅇㅅㅇ

Kiesha awoke into darkness. 

Utter, tangible, palpable darkness. 

Thick, syrupy night as black and suffocating as death clung to her, sticking to her body like hot, rainforest air. When she opened her mouth to speak, it poured into her lungs like water and silenced her; it poured into her ears, her nose, clawed at her eyes.

She tried to push against it, but she couldn’t move. Or maybe it wouldn’t move. She was frozen, suffocating, listening as her heartbeat pounded in her ringing ears, reverberating through the thick, glassy darkness. 

Useless, weak panic registered as she tried and failed again to escape the air devoid of oxygen and light. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, and could hardly think. 

Claws shot out from the void and stabbed at her, sinking into her flesh and tearing as their hosts’ freezing hands dragged her 

 

down,

down,

down. Or was it…    

…up? They clawed,

  … pulled, 

         ripped,

 

reaching for her soul.

 

The night pressed harder against her, slithering into her wounds. 

Crushing her. 

 

She couldn’t scream.

 

That same pressure threw her against a hard wall, making her gasp for air–and though it was still endlessly dark, this time, she could breathe. She drank it in, absorbing every moment she could before the voice of her nightmares cut through and stole her breath away again.

Blaise’s mother. No, no, not again. Please, not–

“You know better than to date a slut, Blaise. She’s using you. You know why she doesn’t have money?” Her voice echoed around the empty space. Kiesha could feel its overpowering vibrations, tremors that made her body tremble. Kiesha clamped her hands over her ears, trying to block it out, to push away the ensuing conversation, but the voices seeped through her fingers anyway, worming their way into her brain. 

Blaise’s voice felt gentler. “Oh please, Mom, it’s not like that–”

“Don’t you talk back to me. I just want what’s best for you. And that wretch is not one of those things. She’s taking advantage of you, son! I just want to keep you safe.”

Their voices rose, and soon, Blaise’s mom was screaming at him, screaming things Kiesha had tried so hard to forget. Words that were practically carved into Kiesha’s heart, words that had left scars for years. And they hurt so bad.

Eventually, Blaise caved in. “...I know, Mom, I know. I’m sorry. I just need the money back, and then I’ll let her go, I promise.”

“Do you love her, Blaise?”

“Mom–”

“Do you love her??”

Silence. Crushing relief swept over Kiesha. Maybe her mind wouldn’t torment her after all, maybe Blaise’s next words had been lost to the void for good, and maybe–

“...no. No, Mother, I don’t. Not… not like I used to.” His voice shattered the darkness into sharp needles, and before she could react, before she could so much as blink, they folded her in and deposited her into a cold, dank, stone space. Her eyes felt like they were bleeding as torchlight suddenly flooded the room, which was divided by a thick glass wall that didn’t quite meet the ceiling. She was on one side, and on the other–

Her heart stopped as she managed to stand. 

Hera. 

Little sister. Little sister, I–

Kiesha reached toward her, but her arm stopped short with a clink. Shackles with thick, heavy chains bound her to the floor. She was trapped. Trapped, and she couldn’t move outside her small range of motion. Anger choked her, and she tried to pull out of her prison’s grasp.

Nothing worked, so she resigned herself to her fate and looked back through the glass.

Kieran.

My brother.

Mom.

Daddy.

Her seven other siblings. 

Blaise. 

As she looked around, she saw more and more of the people she’d left behind. The people she’d… abandoned.

No, not really. I didn’t abandon you. Please just let me explain, I love you, and I would never leave you behind for something– 

*ba-bump* went her heart.

–for something–

*ba-bump*

…better. Kiesha realized then that that was exactly what she’d done. Maybe her family was in pain, feeling what she had when she’d lost Callum–but no. They hadn’t cared about her, they couldn’t! The only reason she’d left is because they hadn’t wanted her anymore. They’d been better off without her, and that’s the only reason she’d allowed herself to leave. They hadn’t needed her! Her work was done, she’d done what she could! They didn’t care, so she could let go too. To live, to stop worrying about them. You can’t care about me. Please let go of me, leave, find a way out and go.

She tried to talk to them, to tell them everything, to explain, but her lips couldn’t quite move; they tugged painfully when she tried to speak. Her hand flew to her mouth, and her fingers found…

Thread. Stitches. Her mouth was stitched closed.

Terror bubbled up inside her chest, and as she examined herself further in her reflection (she could see it in the glass), she found that her entire body was covered in those same little red stitches. Chains hung randomly from some of them, small weights with words inscribed on them from others, pulling at her skin, marring her body. Her hair was long again, heavy, weighing on her neck and head, and her eyes were completely bleached of color. 

She was a monster, yet somehow… her face was still beautiful.

 

And she hated that.

 

She tried to read the words on those little weights, but they wouldn’t focus. It frustrated her that she couldn’t read those words, that she couldn’t see exactly what was weighing her down.

A sudden scream cut through the silence.

Blood splattered against the other side of the glass as Hera’s body fell, dead. The… thing that killed her–an inconstant shape, ever-shifting in opacity, color, and form–seemed to like that, and it violently consumed Hera’s soul, pulling it from her body like taffy.

Kiesha couldn’t scream, and when she tried, the water started pouring, the stitches pulling painfully at her lips. She couldn’t tell where said water came from, just that it came on her side of the room, filling up quickly. It was hot, painful, burning her.

The water flowed faster, deeper, with every person the phantom killed, with every one of Kiesha’s stitches that tore open. And soon their blood spilled into the water, drowning her, choking her, and when Callum appeared to save her, he looked afraid. Disgusted. 

…wrong. His movements were sharp and unnatural, and his eyes were crazy.

He looked like the Callum she’d left back in the Depths.

 

And he laughed at her, mocking her, before he sauntered away, hands in pockets.

 

She couldn’t call after him, and she couldn’t swim. Air escaped her lungs as blood and water poured into them, and the phantom watched her from the other side of the glass calmly. And then there were those hands again, pulling her down by her chains, dragging her faster and faster until she was 

falling, 

 

falling,

 

falling

 

through the chute that led to the dungeon. She landed hard, and relief hit her hard when she realized her body was normal again.

But she couldn’t see, not until a demented Taj crept forward, looking distorted, holding a lantern. He unlocked the cell door and let it creak open before his body turned black and flaked away into the nonexistent wind. His bones rattled as they fell into a neat pile.

If she could have, she would have thrown up.

Kiesha felt herself move through the doorway to the admittance cell of someone else’s accord, movements jerky and unnatural, limbs tied to… strings? They stretched upward, seemingly endlessly, as she involuntarily moved through the empty, stale dungeon that smelled like death. It wasn’t long before she realized it was scattered with dead bodies.

Frisk.

Inca.

Their twins.

Genesis, Isheli, Swag and Cat, Aden and Raven, Jae and Mae.

Rystall. 

She ventured even to the Depths, just to see the Warden’s bloody body dead before the marred door. And when the strings led her to the edge of the chasm, she bent her legs to jump. Anything to escape this nightmare, anything to get out, but–she couldn’t. The strings wouldn’t let her. 

She used her teeth to tear the thread from her body, even though it hurt worse than she could have fathomed, even though she couldn’t move her limbs on her own. And when she tore the last one, her body crumpled, tipped, and toppled over the edge of the gaping hole. 

She fell endlessly, fell among mirrors and stars that flashed her life before her eyes, and when she hit the bottom, she landed quietly, softly, on a bed in a room with candles along one wall.

She leaned against her pillow. She was safe. She was safe. Was she awake now? Had she woken up?

The door creaked open, and Capilla swept in–only she wasn’t Capilla. Not quite.

No. I must be dreaming, this can’t be real, this isn’t real, it’s not real–

But it felt so very real.

Capilla’s eyes were empty holes, limbs stretched out and bent at wrong angles, mouth unusually wide to make room for long, sharp teeth that stuck out unnaturally. 

Kiesha panicked as Capilla scraped over, knuckles dragging on the floor. If only she could make it to Callum, she would be okay, she would be safe. He would protect her–but the blood that dripped from Capilla’s teeth suggested something else.

Help me, she screamed inwardly, get me out, get me out, wake me up, somebody wake me up, please!  

Capilla flickered in and out, sometimes flashing into somebody else. 

Blaise’s mother. The man who had cheated on her. The innkeeper. The boy from the bench, the taskmasters, the Warden, the shapeless entity that had slaughtered her family.

And for just a moment, Capilla was her family, each of them bent out of shape and mangled morbidly.

But she stopped at the side of Kiesha’s bed, bent over her, and froze. She stared, breathing hot, stale air onto her face, and then Kiesha was staring into her own eyes. 

She tried to scream, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. She was ultimately helpless, and she wanted somebody to kill her.

Help me. Somebody. Please, help me.