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31. please, can i sleep?
𝐃𝐀𝐘 29.
Or at least, that’s what Ingrid thinks.
Time bends strangely here, slipping through her fingers like ash. She has no real way of knowing how long it's been — only the unrelenting ache in her limbs and the ever-growing chill in her bones mark the passing of days. Or weeks. Or months.
She lies motionless on the blood-stained stone, her body a collection of bruises and lacerations that throb dully with each breath. Her wrists burn where the chains bite into them, raw and unrelenting, barely holding her upright against the damp wall. The air is thick, stagnant, carrying the metallic tang of rust and something else — something worse.
Her gaze shifts, sluggish, towards the sliver of sickly, yellow light seeping through the narrow window high above. It wavers, flickering like a dying heartbeat, just out of reach. She wants to crawl toward it, to feel warmth on her skin again, but the effort would be meaningless. The pain lacing through her veins — sharp and jagged, like shards of glass embedded beneath her flesh — ensures she stays exactly where she is.
Then — footsteps.
They echo beyond the heavy door, slow and deliberate. Ingrid hears them, but she does not react. Her hollow eyes, shadowed by deep purple bruises, remain fixed on the window.
The door groans open.
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch.
A figure lingers in the doorway, framed against the faint orange light from the corridor. The glow barely reaches inside before the door closes again, sealing them in darkness once more. Ingrid knows who it is before he speaks.
Igor.
Her brother.
She hears the slight tremor in his breath, the faint clink of metal against his unsteady fingers. When he kneels beside her, his presence feels too close, yet still not close enough to be comforting. He carries a small metal cup, the contents sloshing slightly as he extends it toward her.
“Drink.” His voice is quiet, almost pleading. It is swallowed by the room, by the damp, by the emptiness pressing in on all sides.
Ingrid doesn’t react.
Her lips are cracked, split at the corners, the taste of iron lingering on her tongue. But her gaze remains fixed on the sliver of light above, distant and unreachable.
Igor exhales slowly, as if steeling himself. “Ingrid.”
Something about the way he says her name shifts something inside her. A fraction of movement. She turns her head — not to look at him, but to fully face the window.
