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Just one fucking glance so I could remember how to breathe normally again.

UNKNOWN: Miss me?

ME: Only if you dodged when I aimed for your face.

The fact that he is texting me from an unknown number— when I haven’t even blocked him—sets me on edge.

Then another message comes through and my world turns upside down.

UNKNOWN: I see you've grown into quite the funny woman, Ela.

The colour drains from my face as the memories of that night crash into me, too loud, too close, like thunder splitting the sky overhead. A gasp tears out of my chest while I stare at the screen, frozen.

The text dissolves into a blur of blue as tears clouds my vision. One traitorous drop falls onto the screen and I swipe at it with my thumb, breaths turning jagged, uneven as I try to find the block button.

Block.

Block.

Block him.

Block the memories.

UNKNOWN: Ela, now answer me. Miss me?

Ela.

“Elara.” The voice cuts through me. But it’s distorted.

The phone drops from my hand before I can press the block button and lands on the floor with a thud, it isn’t loud but the sound reverberates in my ears.

A black fog swallows my surroundings, devouring the white campus walls until everything is consumed by darkness. until a tiny light flickers in the corner.

The light is broken. It’s broken.

Someone fix it.

Can someone fix it?

Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop,

I don’t think anyone’s coming to fix it.

The voice grows scratchier, rawer, with every breath I take.

When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, And down will—

“Elara?” My gaze settles, wide and unsteady on a confused Sergei as his brown eyes try to scrutinise, peeping in my soul as he finds me trembling.

“What happened?” Sergei didn’t text me. It was him.

“Why are you crying?”

I bend down to pick up my phone, my movements frantic, my hands shaking, my lips trembling.

Sergei leans forward to touch me, but the black fog seeping through me is so dark I fear it’ll swallow his light too.

It’ll consume him the way it’s consumed everything else. So I do what I’ve always done.