Fury and Flame | 3

2 | 7

D E L P H I N I U M

I was exhausted. Thoroughly exhausted both mentally and physically. I hadn't been able to sleep ever since I'd awoken in the ONNT cell before the questioning. Last night consisted of me staring at the wall in the brightly illuminated cell for hours on end. I hardly noticed time had passed until the others had broken inside.

The first thing I did when I got into the room was go into the bathroom. I needed to shower, needed to scrub every inch of my body. But I feared I'd never be clean enough.

But the old feeling of overwhelming panic returned the second I left my back exposed to the rest of the room. So I smashed a small mirror in the bathroom with my fist and picked the sharpest piece of glass. A makeshift dagger to protect myself with. I would carry it with me wherever I went until I gained access to some real weapons. And when I did, I'd take as many as I could.

It became apparent to me that I couldn't stay in the bathroom for long enough without falling into a full-blown panic. It was too white, too small. Going back into the bedroom, I closed the front door until only a crack remained. Good for a quick escape, but not closed off from the others. Plus, I didn't want them to see me in this state.

Despite the room being on the second story, I made sure the window was locked. If someone tried to break in, I'd have time to get away.

Though the sun had only just set, I curled up on the chair and stared at the window. I told myself I wouldn't, but almost immediately, I was asleep. Unconsciousness would perhaps be the only escape from the living hell inside my head.

      For a while, I dreamt of nothing. My mind was blank from my sheer exhaustion. As time went on, I slept lightly, waking every fifteen minutes to be sure I was still safe. And every time, I woke breathless and cold to find that I was alone in the room and everything was as I'd left it. Still, I felt unsafe. Like someone might be watching.

      Then, I began to fall into a deeper sleep, though I'd fought against it. My body practically forced itself to shut down and rest when my mind wouldn't allow it. My head slumped against the back of the chair and I knew nothing more.

      Images swam in my murky mind—things I couldn't quite see. All I knew that they terrified me. My breathing was hard and irregular. This wasn't normal. What was wrong with me?

      Orion. The Tribunal. Benton. Soldiers, hundreds of thousands of them. I was surrounded by them all in that place. Underground. The walls seemed to press in on me as I backed away from them. They watched me with cold, soulless eyes, as if they could see straight to my mind and knew I wasn't one of them.

      But I was. That was the worst part. Whatever they saw inside me was enough to assuage their suspicion. I was one of them. Probably one of the worst.

      I watched myself murder innocents. I watched the life bleed from them until their souls were held in the palm of my hand. And then I crushed them. My own soul was stained blacker than the night.

      Blood. Bone. Last shuddering breaths. Hands reaching out, grabbing my ankles, making me stumble. A mind filled with thoughts that weren't my own—inside a body that wasn't my own. A parasite leeching away all that I was.

      The room was closing in. I wasn't sure if I was awake or still asleep when I stumbled to the bathroom, hand over my mouth. Again, the meager contents of my stomach emptied into the toilet bowl. My body rid itself of the waste and I wished I could somehow purge myself of the darkness that had made a home inside me.

      When I thought of myself in the dream and how I'd watched myself become that monster, I retched again. Soon, I had nothing more to expel and I leaned back, eyes closed. It was times like this that I wondered if not living would be better than this horrible in-between area I was in.