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Her spirit is gone.
There’s nothing left of her here.
My eyes pop open, and I glance around the dark room wildly for a second. I’m awake, out of the nightmare…
But that’s not right, is it?
I’m stilllivingthe nightmare, because what happened in my dream is true. Hannah is dead, and there’s nothing I can do to bring her back.
I feel so numb. Dead inside.
My heart is still beating, and I’m still breathing in and out, but I may as well have died in that alley with my sister.
I don’t remember lying down to go to sleep, and I’m still in my underwear from when the guys undressed me earlier. Everything after that is kind of a blurry mess, and it makes my head hurt to try to think about it too hard.
So I stop.
Someone shifts in the bed behind me, and I turn over and realize Priest is sleeping with me. His face is unlined and more relaxed than usual in his sleep, and there was a time when I would have reached for him or cuddled up and tried to take comfort in his presence and warmth.
But now I’m barely aware of him. If I hadn’t felt him move, I might not have even realized he was there. The connection between us feels thin and muted, just like everything else.
I just lie there, staring at the ceiling for what could be minutes or hours. Time doesn’t even matter.
Eventually, the numb blankness shifts to a restlessness that I can’t ignore. It feels like something is pressing down on me, making it hard to breathe. It makes me feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin, and the closest thing I can compare it to is the feeling I had after I killed Ivan and the pain didn’t go away.
Lying here in the dark feels wrong somehow.
It feels like I shouldn’t be here.
Like I can’t be here.
I can’t do this.
I know if I try to go back to sleep, I’m just going to see Hannah die all over again, and the thought of that makes bile churn in my stomach. I can’t do that again. I don’t want to.
But I also can’t just lie here. It feels like I’m going to lose my mind if I try to do that. So I get up silently, careful not to wake Priest. He needs the sleep, and I don’t want him to try to stop me.
I go to my dresser and grab the first clothes I find, not even paying attention to what they are at first.
A skirt, a shirt, some shoes.
Anything that covers me enough that I can leave.
It’s late as fuck, but I’m not sure exactly what time it is. The house is quiet and dark, and I guess everyone’s in bed, asleep. Even the dog isn’t stirring as I creep down the stairs and into the living room.
It’s too quiet, too dark, just like my thoughts.
Dog does look up when I pass by where he’s curled up on the couch, a small whine escaping him.
“Hush,” I whisper, shaking my head.
He lies back down, but I can feel his eyes on me as I head for the front door.
I slip outside and start walking down the sidewalk. It feels almost like I’m still in a dream. Like the world around me is hazy and distorted, and none of it is real.
I can’t feel anything.
The trees rustle with a passing breeze, but I don’t feel it on my skin. It lifts my hair a bit, but I don’t feel that either. My feet move down the street, carrying me past the fancy-ass houses in this neighborhood, but I don’t really see them.
