“Where am I? Where is my sister?” I demand, too frightened to turn around to look at him.
“Now, now, all in good time.”
“Tell me, do you like games, Myssa?” he asks, amused.
“Not your fucking games, Jasper.” My annoyance starts getting the better of me.
Clearly not liking my response, Jasper quickly closes the gap between us, his presence so close to me that my breath hitches.
This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real, the chant in a loop in my head.
Clicking his tongue, he says, “Now, Myssa, where is all this hostility coming from? A simple yes or no would suffice.”
“Why are you doing this?” I snap.
“Why are you doing this?” he repeats, mocking me.
Feeling paralyzed between the fear that this is real and frustration at the altercation, I fixate on a spot on the wall. I don’t dare say a word, as he continues to ask the question repeatedly, pacing back and forth behind me.
His movements become more erratic as he rants, and I’m not even sure he means for me to hear what he’s saying, so I focus on trying to figure out how to get out of here.
“I gave themEVERYTHING,you see, I was perfectly fine with my existence. I was here forTHEM. I KNEWmy place.But then one day, in one fucking day, it changed. She was…” he hesitates.
Confused by his confession, I’m at a loss as to where this is going. Not daring to interrupt, I stand silently as he continues.
“She came in like a siren, and I was mesmerized. Her warmth, her beauty, her laugh, her love. She was the air I breathed, the beat of my heart—she was life. The soul I questioned existing within me intertwined with hers, and a fragment I never knew was missing became whole. And we were happy, so very happy. I should have known.” His voice breaks for a moment before turning viciously into a malicious chuckle.
“Happiness for a brief moment, just to get snuffed out in the night. And for what? Their amusement? To see if they could break ME?But they didn't, did they?”
The rage in his tone increases with every unhinged admission. My pulse becomes more erratic as I shift, desperately trying to stifle the tremor in my hand to avoid his attention while he continues his rant.
“No, because I did it, I found a way, a way, to seep through the cracks in the shadows and dismantle everything they built, piece by piece and soul by soul.”
“Fires will blaze until ashes fall from the sky of every afterlife. Chaos will reign upon helpless souls with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Destruction is the only peace worth pursuing.”
He stops pacing, and I can sense him looking back at me.
“How does this have anything to do with me or my sister?” I ask, trying to make sense of his ramblings.
He mocks me, and it’s almost as if I can actually feel him up against my back. But I know that can’t be—he has always just been in my dreams, but this feels so…real.
“Oh poor, poor little soul, you are merely collateral damage, a message to be sent, bait if you will,” he seethes.
“Fuck you, Jasper, you can’t touch me. This is a dream, remember?”
“Oooh, but how wrong you are,” he snickers.
With that confession, my desperation to end this nightmare grows stronger. It's just an empty threat, right? My assumption slowly crumbles as I feel his presence closer behind me, and the whisper of his cold breath next to my ear sends a jolt of uneasiness throughout my body.
“See, you’re inmy realmnow,” he snarls.
Suddenly, a rush of pain surges through me as Jasper drags his skeleton-like fingertip roughly along my flesh, leaving a trail of blood in its wake.
I swallow my scream through gritted teeth, trying desperately to block out his torture.
“Where is my sister, Jasper?” I ask sharply. I cannot pretend to claim that this isn’t real anymore. He’s real, which means he has my sister’s soul, so there’s no more denying it. But he ignores me and continues with a maniacal laugh.
“You have fight…you remind me of her,” he says, holding my wrists, and his whispered admission against my skin instantly causes the bile in my stomach to make its way into my throat.
