Ptolemaea | Henry Creel

Martyrdom

GUYS! IM SO SORRY LMAO. I know I said last time that this was the finale, but IT ISNT!!!!!

NEXT CHAPTER IS BUT I MEAN IT THIS TIME AND I OFFICIALLY HAVE EVERYTHING PLANNED OUT!

I intended for this chapter to be the actual finale (where we'd see the 'showdown' between henry, sixteen, eleven, etc.) but it's been so long since I last posted (and the chapter was only halfway done) so I thought if i couldn't give the full finale, then its LONG overdue that I give at least the next part of the story.

I'M SORRY IF THIS HAS BEEN DRAGGED OUT YALL! IF YOU SEE THIS, THANK YOU FOR STILL READING DESPITE MY TERRIBLE UPDATE SCHEDULE!!

OKAY NO MORE YAP, ENJOY!

~

When my feet met solid ground, I was struck by a thousand different sensations.

They blurred into one another as the world spun in an incomprehensible tempest of reds, greens, and blues. I could feel tears on my cheeks, but my hands wouldn't stop shaking long enough for me to wipe them away. Everything was bright, and hot, and feverish, caught somewhere between the bounds of mind and matter.

To say I was overwhelmed would be far too gentle a word for it.

My mind overloaded itself with a million thoughts, pulled from one to the other without a moment's reprieve. I wanted to call for help but my lips wouldn't move. And what difference would it make, anyway?-- Henry was the only one who'd be able to hear me.

This was what he wanted all along, wasn't it? To get in my head?

God, and I had let him.

Let him fool me with all that talk of how much he cared for me, how much he hated himself for what he'd done-- but those were just lies, weren't they? More lies on top of the thousands of others he'd fed me to swallow with all the eagerness of a mindless fucking animal. Maybe this was exactly what he wanted; to leave me so overcome I couldn't even begin to think, let alone stop him before he got to Max.

I couldn't breathe. There was so much to regret, and I couldn't breathe.

My lips gaped, drawing in the sharpest inhale I could manage. I had to calm down. This was no time to lose my head. There was too much on the line.

I pressed a hand to my chest, eyes flickering shut. In an attempt to still my racing mind, I urged my surroundings to ebb away and instead focused on the swell of air in my lungs. I'm fine. Everything will be fine.

I just had to get through this.

Another minute passed before my heartbeat slowed. Without its incessant pounding in my ears, my hearing began to tune back in to the world around me. Then, I could make out background noise somewhere far off. It was sharp in tone, extending for brief intervals before it stopped. There was a beat of silence, then it picked up again.

Bird song.

Soon after the realization, I was struck by the sharp, distinctive smell of pine needles. They filled the air around me in a way only the abundance of Maine forestry could, attaching themselves to every surface and lingering almost parasitically.

I knew that smell.

When my eyes snapped open, I immediately recognized the sight that greeted me; my cabin in Maine. Despite all the time that had passed, it looked exactly as I left it. With the same wobbly chairs, the same grimy windowsills, and the same unflattering curtains each with the same busy patterning. Even my work uniform lay abandoned on the couch, discarded just as it always was after a long shift at the diner.