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32. home, the first grave
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐑𝐈𝐃 𝐑𝐄𝐆𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐓𝐇 𝐎𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄, the golden glow pressing against her eyelids. Sunlight.
For a fleeting, fragile moment, she convinced herself it was another nightmare. Another grotesque, twisting dream that blurred the edges of reality until she woke up drenched in sweat, heart hammering, but safe.
But nightmares weren’t supposed to feel this real.
A dull ache pulsed at the base of her skull, spreading outwards in jagged waves. Her limbs were heavy, weighed down as if she were sinking into the mattress beneath her. She forced herself to blink past the thick, misty light veiling her vision, but it refused to yield. The only things she could grasp onto were the hushed voices murmuring nearby and the feeling of crisp linen sheets tangled around her fingers.
Slowly, she shifted, pushing herself upright. The voices sharpened — too loud yet impossibly distant, like whispers pressed against her skin and carried away before she could grasp them. Her pulse stuttered. She knew those voices.
Her stomach twisted as the realization set in like cold iron around her ribs.
This wasn’t a dream.
The room sharpened into focus, and Ingrid wished it hadn’t.
Standing in the center, clad in a flowing gown the same shade as freshly spilled blood, was her mother. Fiery red hair cascaded over her shoulders, her expression poised in careful, eerie anticipation, like a lion watching its prey stir. Ingrid had seen that look before. It was the same one that preceded pain.
In the farthest corner of the room, her brother lingered in the shadows. Dark curls obscured his face, but she could feel his stare, heavy and unreadable. He didn’t speak. He never did, not when it mattered.
A shudder traced the length of her spine. She clenched the sheets, grounding herself in the texture, the sensation — anything to remind herself that she was still here. Still real.
The walls were gilded, the bed soft, the air thick with perfumed incense. But a cage was still a cage.
Her mother’s voice cut through the silence, smooth as silk but laced with quiet amusement.
"Finally awake, I see."
Ingrid's vision was still blurred around the edges, but she could picture the expression that went with those words — the too-perfect smile, stretched just wide enough to seem unnatural.
She exhaled sharply, forcing her sluggish mind into motion. "Damn," she muttered, rolling her shoulders as if shaking off a phantom weight. "Thought I’d died."
