Page 154 of My Lovely Tragedy
Together in an endless field
Tonight, I dream of flying
Wings spread and grazing the pines with you alongside
But the heat expanded and the wax faded
You were the salt in the ocean, the blood in my veins
Air, no longer in me as I fill with you
There was only us, only you,
Our bloodsport, my favorite regret
Your promised evanescence
As the final note fades out, leaving me swathed in a haunting stillness, the barrier shatters. The first burst from between my lips is quiet but jarring. My entire torso wracks with the force as I double over the keyboard and drop my head against the smooth wood. It’s cold against my fevered skin, causing me to shiver, even as my heated breath blows back in my face.
The second is louder, but slower, drawn from somewhere deeper. Clawing its way out with talons and fangs. Shredding and eviscerating.
A disturbing noise bellows out around me, sending prickles down the expanse of my spine where they bloom outward. Hands grip my shoulders, tugging me up, pulling me away. Fingers clamp around mine, uncurling them from the edge of the keyboard and drawing them close to something warm and solid.
My legs are weak and useless beneath me as they go through the motions of what must be walking—but I can’t feel anything but the vacuum in my chest. The very center of a black hole, swallowing everything that dare come close enough—including the very light all around.
Shrouded in darkness. All alone. Forced to devour even the ones I love.
My name is whispered and shouted in echoes, followed by rapacious screams and chants. I blink through the distortion, swaying on my feet as darkness flutters in and out in waves with flashes of light interwoven.
“Brooklyn.”
“B, are you okay?”
“Someone grab a fucking chair!”
There’s a grating scrape, and it’s the first thing I hear with clarity. Through the intense volumewithin,bursting out. But I can’t see. Or breathe. Or-or…“Fuck,” I gasp out.
My hand slams against my sternum. Again. And again. Clawing, over and over— “Stop! C’mon, man,stop.” I need to find my heart. The useless muscle justsittinginside my chest cavity. It’s filled with a malignancy that’s been festering since the moment he put me in his car and told me to fuckingleave him.
Tobias made that choice—not me. It’s like he didn’t even fucking care to see how much he changed me.
I wanted to stay, consequences be damned. Fucking talking about promises like any of that even matters after everything we’ve been through. Who we were to one another.
He could never deny it. I saw it in him—every time he gave me those garnet eyes, open and ratifying every decision ever made.
He wanted to keep me. He wanted to hurt me.
He wanted to see my blood, to feel it and dig beneath my flesh.
He wanted to pick me apart and flay me open just to see if he could piece me back together again—and he did. He stitched my jagged edges with his own flesh, fusing our cores into a single, burning star. Set to implode on itself. Eradicating everything within distance.
Tobias exposed me—found out what made me tick. Then, he pulled chunks out with his spindly fingers and replaced them with… him.
“Brooklyn!”
My head falls back as light flutters back in. The rumbling screams from the crowd are deafening, and I wince against the magnitude, but closer than that are the panicked shouts coming from my family.
They’re surrounding me, crowded in tight. The light above casts their head in individual halos. The sight makes me smile—or at least, I think it does. I can’t really feel my face. I watch their lips move, how their eyes dance over me, to each other and back, but they’re no longer touching me, and I’m grateful for that.
