“I was a son, a husband, and a father. But at most, a man with a face. Now I am not.”
With trembling hands, I brush a lock of rust-colored hair from her cheek.
The motion is gentle. Reverent. My fingers hover after the touch, unwilling to leave. Her skin is pale beneath the firelight, soft like the earth back home—the soil I buried my heart in.
But a part of me still hopes.
The tears are gone. My eyes are clear, dry. Still, something in my chest coils at the sight of her. The resemblance isn’t exact, not even close—but the way her cheek curves, the way her lashes catch the glow, the way her breath stutters when I sit too close...
Because I know the truth. She’s not my daughter. She never will be.
No one can understand this feeling unless they’ve stood where I have—buried a daughter, watched a home burn, clawed back into a world where your own name tastes like ash. The grief warps me. Makes me see her when she isn’t there.
She looks up at me, her wide eyes glassy with fear. They shimmer like polished stone—beautiful, but cold. She doesn’t trust me.
Of course she doesn’t.
Only hours ago, she nearly became the plaything of a rotting old man. And now, here she is, wrapped in a stranger’s blanket, dressed in a stranger’s clothes, watching me from across a bed that could swallow us both whole.
I sit beside her. My weight barely shifts the mattress. The silence between us is thicker than the velvet curtains. It hums like an old wound. She shakes beneath the covers. Not from the cold—I’ve made sure of that. The fire burns hot in the hearth. The windows are shut. Every crack sealed.
I study the wall across from us. A mural—foreign patterns and floral ink from another culture. Noble taste. Pretentious and expensive. But behind that wall...
Behind it are the bodies.
Their hearts no longer beat their frozen pulse. Their stoic expressions didn’t change until the end, until my hands opened them from stomach to throat. I could’ve made it quick. Clean. But I didn’t. I wanted them to feel something before the end. Because I have felt everything—and none of them ever did.
My smile shakes as I stare at my hands. Pale palms, bloodstained fingertips. The shape of them isn’t quite right—not mine. The body I wear now used to belong to someone else. But the trembling is real.
Then the light starts to fracture.
The world twists. Warps.
Color stretches too far. Every shadow bends unnaturally. Like I’m watching through a pane of stained glass—or a kaleidoscope made of bone.
Something that always starts this way.
My heart lurches. My vision fractures. The air thickens with silhouettes—dancing, whispering, burning. Fire crawls across the floor in shapes only I can see.
My nails grow. I scratch my scalp. Harder. Deeper.
Laughter crawls through the walls.
My feet bounce, shoes tapping the floor in sync with my pulse. I look to the girl.
She sees the monster.
No. She isn’t Casandra.
She recoils, dragging the blanket over her bruised face. Her fear is a dagger to my ribs. The distance between us is barely three steps, but it feels like oceans.
“Casandra...” I whisper.
Tears break free again. They roll down my cheeks without shame. I reach up and smear blood across my forehead—green blood, thick and warm.
The golden moon watches from the window.
It splits the dark with its glow and casts a long shadow over the child. I take a step to the side, letting the light fall over her instead.
“I–I’m sorry, Casandra.”
Her eyes are wide. Luminous. But she hides behind the blanket like I’m something to be feared. Maybe I am.
The blood in my head pulses. My body folds inward. A scream escapes me—ugly and sharp. Saliva spills to the floor.
The memories come back.