Page 159 of Hidden Echoes

The world around me blurs as grief consumes me, a crushing weight that leaves me numb. Paulina senses my distraction, her gaze sharpening. I try to fight back, to gather some strength, but there are too many of them—too many eyes watching, too many hands reaching to keep me in place.

No, I can’t… I can’t escape.

I woke up in my cell with a strange, familiar feeling. My head felt heavy, as if it had been pulled from the depths of an ocean that didn’t want to let go. There was a ringing in my ears. A weight in my chest. My body was stiff, numb, foreign. I had to take a deep breath just to remind myself I still existed. But even that breath felt detached, like it belonged to someone else.

The faint smell of old sweat clung to the stale air—familiar in a way that made my stomach churn. I looked down and saw I was wearing a stained oversized shirt. One I hadn’t seen in years. One that belonged to another life, another version of me, one that never really escaped. Just like the old times.

Everything inside me recoiled.

No. No, no, no.

It felt like nothing had changed. Like time had curled in on itself, like I was stuck in the same nightmare, endlessly suspended between reality and nothingness. My fingers gripped the edge of the thin mattress, desperate for something solid, but the air felt thick. Untrustworthy. Like a presence I couldn’t see was pressing down on my chest, watching me. Measuring how far gone I was.

Something was wrong.

I felt it in my bones.

My throat was dry. Raw. I tried to swallow, but even that felt like too much. How long had it been?

The door creaked open, and my breath caught.

But it wasn’t her. Not Paulina.

It was Dr. Rachel Wayne.

“You’ve been asleep for quite some time, Miss Riviera,” she said, her tone clinical, detached. Like I was a case file. Like I was a malfunctioning part of a machine she was just waiting to discard.

I pushed myself upright too quickly. My vision blurred, darkening at the edges. My stomach twisted, bile rising up.

“Where’s Paulina?” My voice was tight, scraped raw like gravel dragged across my windpipe.

“She’s still in the States,” the doctor replied without emotion. “She’ll come here to talk to you.”

The words didn’t make sense. I looked around, panic crawling up my throat like ivy.

Sleeping??Asleep??What did that even mean?

“Sleeping?” I rasped. “What do you mean… sleeping?”

She tilted her head at me like she was watching a rat figure out its maze. “You were out. For days. Your body shut down. We were monitoring you.”

I stared at her. No. No, that wasn’t possible.

“I didn’t leave here,” I whispered, gripping my arms.

“Of course not.” Her voice was tinged with something like pity. “You’re not allowed out of the cage.”

Cage.

The word detonated inside me.

Because it was a cage. It had always been a cage. Dressed up like a clinic. Like they were helping me. Like I was the problem.

The doctor sighed. “A man wants to talk to you. Can you promise me you won’t kill him?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. The door opened again, and a man walked in—stiff posture, expensive suit, glasses perched on his nose like he was about to read a death sentence.

“Miss Riviera?”

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