Single for Eternity

I didn’t think.

I couldn’t think.

The moment I locked eyes with that thing—that grinning, shadow-wrapped horror—my body reacted before my mind could.

I bolted straight into the cave.

Every step felt slower than it should have been, as if the very air had thickened, dragging against my limbs. My lungs burned, my vision blurred, and yet, I didn’t stop.

’Couldn’t.’

Something was crawling beneath my skin, something that wasn’t mine.

Shivering. Sweating. Hairs standing on end.

I’d faced monsters before—the manticore, the spider, creatures that could have killed me in an instant. But none of them had made me feel like this.

None of them had made me feel like I didn’t exist.

Because that’s what it was—an unmaking.