Page 33 of Inevitable Endings
Satisfied that she’s warm enough, I push myself up from the floor with a groan. My body aches from skating, from falling, from everything. I flick the TV off, plunging the room into a quiet, dim glow from the streetlights outside. Then, padding softly on sore feet, I make my way to my bedroom.
I flick on the light, and it buzzes softly before settling into its usual dull glow. The space is lived-in but chaotic. The bed is made, sort of, but my nightstand is cluttered with books, half-empty water bottles, and a forgotten cup of coffee that’s probably days old.
Then there’s the closet.
I hesitate before walking over, already knowing what I’ll find.
When I pull the door open, it’s exactly as I left it; a mess of clothes stacked in piles, some folded, most not. A mix of clean and worn, jackets shoved onto hangers without care, newer clothes I’ve bought but barely touched. I run a hand through my hair, exhaling sharply.
I should organize this. I should make it neat, put things where they belong, but I never felt like I belonged anywhere.
But my fingers stop on something familiar.
A hoodie, oversized and dark, tucked into the chaos. Not mine.
His.
The fabric is thick, slightly faded, but still soft. My breath catches as I pull it from the pile, the weight of it heavier than I remember. The last time I wore it…
The night of his arrest.
The memory is sharp, vivid in a way I wish it wasn’t. The cold air. The flashing red and blue lights. My pulse thundering in my ears as they took him away, as he turned to look at me one last time.
I swallow hard, gripping the hoodie tighter before slowly bringing it up to my face.
It still smells like him.
Faint, but there. A mix of cologne, smoke, and something deeper, something that lingers in the fabric like a ghost that refuses to leave.
My chest tightens, and for a moment, I just stand there, the hoodie bunched in my hands.
I press the hoodie to my chest, holding on just a little longer, as if somehow, by keeping it, I can hold on to the parts of him that still linger in the darkness inside of me. I fall onto the bed, the hoodie clutched in my arms like a lifeline.
I’m standing in the middle of a forest. The trees rise up, their gnarled limbs twisted and contorted into shapes that shouldn’t exist. They stretch toward the sky like broken fingers reaching for something they’ll never grasp.
The air is thick with the scent of damp earth and rot, heavy as though the weight of the forest itself is bearing down on me. The ground beneath my feet shifts, soft and giving, as though it’s made of something far darker than dirt. Something that’s hungry.
I try to move, but my legs are weighted down, my feet sinking into the earth as if the soil is pulling me deeper, dragging me under. The more I struggle, the more it pulls, the earth swallowing me, clawing at my legs, my body. I try to pull free, but my hands, my arms, are like shadows now, pale and translucent, barely even mine anymore. The veins under my skin throb, pushing against the surface, as though something is crawling beneath it, trying to break free.
The ground shifts beneath me, soft and wet, slick with something I can’t quite understand. It smells like iron, like decay, like something dead that’s been buried far too long. The dirt pulls at me, slipping between my fingers, clinging to my skin, crawling up my arms and legs like it knows me, like it’s been waiting for me. I try to pull away, but the dirt is too strong, consuming. The branches of the trees above me stretch, their gnarled fingers reaching down, brushing against my skin, their touch sharp, jagged. They grab at my arms, my legs, pulling me further into the ground, into the darkness.
I can’t breathe. The air is thick with the smell of decay, of something rotting, something... wrong. The sky above me is void, an endless black abyss with no stars, no light, no way to escape. The darkness presses in from every side, wrapping around me, closing me off from everything else.
I hear a sound then, a faint whisper, barely audible, curling around me like smoke. The earth shudders beneath my feet, and I feel it; the weight of something rising from below, something that isn’t new, but has always been here, waiting, festering. Something dark, something alive.
I glance down, and for the first time, I can see the outline of my body, but it’s wrong. My skin is too pale, too thin, and I feel the throb of something crawling.
The dirt begins to swallow me whole, curling around my chest, my neck, its grip tightening, sinking in, until there’s no room to breathe, no space to move. The branches tighten their hold, pulling me down deeper, until the soil is up to my waist, my chest, my throat.
The earth, the roots, they are all me. A deep, tangled network of despair and violence, clawing its way to the surface, ready to drag me under and keep me there, suffocated in its cold embrace.
I try to pull away, but there’s nowhere to go. The darkness has already wrapped itself around me, inside me, woven into the very core of who I am. The soil isn’t just swallowing me. It’s shaping me.
Chapter 16
Whispers of the Past
Isabella
