Chapter 72: Depression
The cracking of her skin receded like ice melting under fire. Her breath came in sharp, panicked bursts as the effects of the pill dulled—temporarily. But the damage had already begun.
Her complexion bleached unnaturally pale, veins threading beneath her skin like thin black ink. Then her irises drained of color—no longer black, but void. Blank. Blind.
"I can’t see!!!" Kola shrieked, her voice ragged with hysteria. "Somebody help—I can’t see!!"
Her fingers trembled, then clawed at her own face in frantic disbelief. Nails tore into the delicate skin around her sockets, blood flowing from across her chalk-white cheeks.
Blood splattered everywhere, she screamed like a death knell as the sound of flesh tearing rang out in the forest.
Zephyr flinched—but not from her cries. As soon as Kola deceleration of being blind rang out, Zephyr started to have depressive thoughts.
"Remove your eyes... Eat them... Pop them... Pluck them out...
They weren’t words exactly. They were sensations disguised as thoughts—voices soaked in despair, old and venomous, coiling around his mind like smoke.
He stumbled backward, gripping his skull. "No. No, no!!" he gasped through clenched teeth. But they didn’t stop.
"She doesn’t need hers anymore. Why should you?"
His breathing quickened, vision dimming. He looked down—only to see his hands moving without permission, drifting toward his face like puppets on frayed string. He fought them, muscles trembling with resistance—but they moved anyway. His fingers hovered over his eyes.