Final Truth

Chapter 64: Shatter

Julia's point of view:

I run along the shore for what seems like a small lifetime, reveling in the sensation of being able to sprint, to experience some semblance of freedom within the confines of the test, to simply move as much as I want.

A year in a cell and a week in a hospital bed is enough to make anyone mad with want at exercising some control over how and where they choose to let their legs carry them.

The sound of my own breathing and the phantom ache still scratching at my lungs is enough to keep the memories away, and I turn to the pain and breathlessness as a coping method to ignore it all, ignore that little voice in the back of my head begging me to think, to just stop.

No, I keep moving as surely as I desire; to stop would be to surrender to the horror itching at the back of my mind, the fear of my surroundings and how truly helpless I am. Best not to bring myself that low, not yet anyway.

I can hold off on breaking a little longer; I've had tons of practice.

And so I begin to forget. Forget almost drowning, forget almost being crushed, forget killing the version of myself that crawled from a photo. It all gets pushed out, lost in the sea that crests and crashes a few feet to my left. Dragged into the depths just as surely as I was, and I hope to never see it resurface. It can all die with that creature I ripped apart. All that exists now is the sand under my feet, the salt-ridden wind, and the infernal strings that I've begun to imagine are pulling on my fingers...

Wait, no, not imagining.

Grinding my feet to a sudden halt, I look down at my left hand, the colored threads merging into a strange gradient before my returning clarity is able to differentiate them again. And surely enough, they're pulling gently against my fingers, almost as if they were the small hands of a child tugging me in the direction of something it wants. The feeling urges me to my immediate right, away from the ocean and into a cavern of rocks that lay piled high in the distance.

For a moment I consider ignoring the pull at my fingers, contemplate forgetting the strings around me in favor of continuing along the shore. Perhaps if I kept going, I could run myself straight out of the test.

But the threads aren't having it; before I can even dig my heels into the sand to start up again, the gentle pull becomes a commanding yank in the direction of the rocks, so forceful that it almost drags me to the ground. The strings tighten around each finger to the point of pain, daring me to step out of line again.

"Alright, we'll do this your way," I growl unhappily, composing myself enough to walk in the direction of the rocks as the ocean fades behind me. The pain in my fingers begins to recede as if the threads were satisfied with me, and vaguely I begin to see myself as a marionette made to dance whenever the strings say so.

The rocks almost seem to triple in size as I draw nearer, monstrous pieces of stone that would better be described as blackened boulders. They all lean against one another, propped up with scattered openings between them, just big enough for a person to slip through. They all seem to spring from against a sandbank, and when I finally get close enough, I realize that it's a small cave system that calls to me.

A hot flash of fear sears through my chest at the prospect of going back into the darkness, but the strings tighten once more and drag me to the mouth of one of the openings.

In here, they seem to say. Keep going.

Trembling, I ignite my right palm on fire to give myself some light, the little flame crackling and sputtering to mirror my own heartbeat. The warmth of it, however, does bring some semblance comfort, so I take a deep breath and slip inside.