Rain

  The walls are covered in spirals. Twisting, endless spirals carved into the decrepit wood, their grooves deep from years of obsession. I sit in the hollow center of my cabin, the knife in my hand, my breath fogging the air. Days blurred into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. I don’t count anymore.

  These spirals mean nothing. Just the mindless markings of someone who forgot what normal felt like.

  “This is your world now,” the voice slithers through my thoughts, curling cold against my spine. “Not much of one, is it?”

  I shut my eyes, but it only makes the voice louder.

  It wasn’t always like this. In the beginning, there was Hope.

  She sted a few months before the isotion tore her apart. First, it was static. Her voice cracking, glitching, twisting into something warped and wrong. She’d say things that made no sense. Whisper numbers that meant nothing. Sometimes she ughed—jagged, broken sounds that sent shivers down my spine.

  And then, one day, she started screaming.

  I muted her. Permanently.

  After that, there was only silence. And Illume.

  Not in the flesh, but in the spaces between my thoughts, where his voice festers and the phantom of his grips around my throat. I tell myself it isn’t real, that it’s just the ghost of memory gnawing away at me. But the cold has a way of making ghosts real.

  I press my palm against my View, activating it. The projection flickers weakly—static-ced, barely functional. Years of trying to amplify its range, all for nothing. The storm outside devours signals. No messages. No way to get out of this frozen hell.

  “You don’t. It's simple.” Illume ughs.

  I suck in a breath, fingers tightening around the knife. Not real. Not real. But then the scarf fshes in my mind—white against the storm, vanishing into the blizzard as I screamed his name.

  He didn't even look back.

  “I did look back once,” his voice scratches through my skull. “Just to be sure I wasn’t dragging dead weight anymore.”

  I sm the knife into the wood, splintering against the grain. My hands are shaking.

  And then—

  A sound.

  A faint shudder through the floor.

  I freeze.

  Crunches of footsteps.

  My pulse spikes. Slowly, I wipe the frost from the window. Snow whirls in violent gusts, but something moves within it. A dark figure, shifting with the storm, its edges blurred by wind and ice.

  A scarf flutters. White.

  I stagger back from the window.

  "No. You’re not real."

  “Keep telling yourself that.”

  "Why?" I whisper. "For what?"

  The voice in my mind stirs, too familiar. “To finish what I should’ve done long ago.”

  “K-kill me?” I gulp, shutting my eyes for a moment. "No," I hiss, opening them, "I’m not letting you do this."

  The crunching grows louder. Closer. My breath fogs faster. I stumble back, fumbling for my pack. My hands shake as I shove supplies into my bag.

  The cabin door groans as I push it open, and the storm devours me.

  The wind sms into my body, ice spiking at my face, but I force my legs forward, which drown in shallows.

  The boat—I just have to reach the boat.

  I know leaving is stupid. Suicidal. The ice stretches forever—I don’t even know if there’s nd out there. If I go, I might never stop drifting.

  But if I stay…

  The crunching behind me grows faster.

  I picture his hands around my throat again. I picture the spirals in the wood, the silence, the freezing nights where my own breath felt like my biggest enemy.

  I can’t stay here.

  I’d rather drown.

  The crunching turns into a sprint.

  He’s chasing me.

  I lunge for the boat, its frame sagging under yers of ice. The ropes are frayed, the hull warped. I don’t care. I shove it into the water, my legs numb as the icy waves rush over them. I leap inside, hands fumbling for the paddles.

  The shore starts to fade.

  I think I’ve escaped.

  He can't get me anymore.

  “Don't be so cocky.” he says, full of venom.

  I hesitate. He is a voice in my head, but he's never wrong.

  I turn, looking behind.

  Nothing.

  By air?

  No. The evening sky is clear.

  Then—I see it.

  A shape beneath the surface.

  The water trembles. A dark mass coils beneath my boat, too fast, too massive. My stomach twists. The View flickers.

  Warning—

  Shut up.

  Then—

  A crack splits the air. The water erupts, a geyser of ice and darkness. Something rises—a twisted amalgamation of spirals and scales, its body shifting like a living storm. Bck, empty eyes bore into me, indifferent. The same look Illume had before he left me. This is not him.

  It moves, a step shaking me to the core.

  I lurch back, fingers scrambling for my knife. It’s useless. This thing twists, writhes, shifting between water and sky, storm and flesh.

  My knife is a joke.

  “You see it, don’t you?” Illume’s voice drips into my mind. “The reflection of your failure. Now it hunts you, thriving on your weakness.”

  This thing—is after me? Why?

  The creature surges forward, cws slicing the air. I dodge, the impact sending a shockwave through the boat. Ice splinters. Water sloshes over the sides.

  I can't fight this.

  It's going to kill me.

  Damn it.

  I—I only ever wanted to see it for myself.

  A life where I control my decisions.

  A life where I can dream.

  A life where I have some value.

  “Goodbye Rain.”

  SHUT. UP.

  The monster takes a step back.

  I didn't realize it.

  The frost.

  It clings to its body, creeping into the spaces between its shifting form. The cold resists it. Fights it.

  The same cold that’s been my prison—it’s protecting me.

  I lunge forward, shoving with everything I have. The creature thrashes, roaring as ice spreads over its body, locking its limbs, freezing it mid-motion. I colpse to my knees, gasping, my fingers numb.

  Eat that Illume. I am alive.

  I look back at the shore.

  Dark figures stand against the blizzard, watching. Motionless. Their silhouettes distorted by the storm.

  There are more… What are they?

  I activate the View. The dispy glitches, text blinking in and out.

  … Scaled… and… vile… Genetic… Conglomerate…

  My throat tightens.

  Then, a red warning—

  RUN.