Chapter 69: Nightmare
The darkness is relentless. It presses down on me, heavy and suffocating, as if the weight of it is trying to crush the very breath from my lungs. I open my eyes—or at least I think I do—but everything is the same. There’s no light here, no warmth, no escape. Just the same endless cold, the biting hunger that gnaws at my insides, and the pain that lingers in every part of me, dull and constant.
I’m still in that bed. The old, creaking frame beneath me feels like it’s sinking deeper into the ground. The thin blanket covering me is stiff with dirt and blood, offering no warmth, no comfort. My body feels like it’s made of stone, unmoving, my limbs too heavy, too weak to even twitch. I try to lift my arm, but it’s as if the muscles have forgotten how to respond. There’s nothing left in me.
Nothing but the cold.
The hunger.
The pain.
It’s worse now, sharper. The cold has settled deep into my bones, a permanent ache that never lets up. I can feel the edges of my skin, taut and raw from days of lying in the same position. My ribs press against the fabric of my shirt, skin stretched too thin over bone. I can’t even remember the last time I ate, or drank, or felt anything other than this sick, endless agony.
Was it ever different? Did I ever leave this place? My thoughts are a mess, tangled and distant, like memories trapped behind a fog I can’t quite clear. I try to grasp at them—images of warmth, of laughter, of Noelle.
Noelle...
A flash of his face, bright and full of life, like a star burning in the night. I reach for it, desperate. But it slips away, melting like water through my fingers. Noelle’s voice, his touch, his warmth... it feels so far now, so unreal. A figment of my imagination.