"AAAAAA"
Tila’s endless screams shredded the stale air inside the box—raw, unrelenting, animal.
They bounced off the mold-crusted walls, a haunting cry that pierced the silence like jagged glass, echoing back in distorted waves that clawed at the senses.
The darkness pressed in from all sides, thick and suffocating, alive with mory, wrapping around them like a shroud woven from forgotten nightmares.
Kael, holding her close in the box’s cramped belly, felt her body tremble violently in his arms, her every shudder transferring through him like an electric current.
His empathetic resonance pulsed from his hands—gentle, subtle—not to overpower her fear, but to wrap it, soothe it, dull it, like a warm blanket laid gently across barbed wire.
It wasn’t enough.
Not at first.
Her terror was like an unhinged hurricane.
Wild. Feral.
Kael could sense the years of agony buried beneath steel and sass, now uncoiling like a beast starved too long, lashing out with claws honed by survival.
The orphanage had carved wounds in her he hadn’t fully imagined—deep, festering gashes that ti had only scabbed over, not healed.
The box, the insects, the silence... it all ca back at once, a floodgate bursting open, drowning her in the past.
Outside, Liss paced the dim corridor, her jaw clenched tight, her steps tight with unease, boots scraping softly against the stone floor.
Her hand hovered near the door of the box, fingers twitching to intervene.
She hated this.
Hated not being inside.
Not protecting Kael from whatever storm raged within those walls.
But Kael had insisted—this was part of it.
This had to happen, no matter how much it tore at her instincts.
Inside the box, the screams gave way to sobs—slow, broken, wrenching from her chest like pieces of her soul being torn free.
Her whole body sagged in his arms, shaking as if her bones rembered the cold, the isolation, the endless nights.
Kael tightened his hold around her, his arms a steady anchor in the chaos.
"Please... let out..." Tila begged, her voice hoarse and cracking, raw from the strain. "I can’t... I need to leave, I need to go ho—please, Kael—please."
He didn’t speak, didn’t move to release her, his presence a quiet insistence that this was the path forward.
She pulled away from his chest just enough to throw her face toward the darkness, her black eyes wide and desperate. "Lila! Lila, co—please! Help , please!"
Nothing answered. The silence mocked her, heavy and unbroken.
Kael’s hand smoothed softly down her back, a gentle rhythm against her trembling.
"No Lila will co this ti, Tila," he said quietly, his voice low and even, cutting through the haze of her panic.
She froze in his arms, her body going rigid, breath held captive in her lungs.
"She won’t save you. She won’t cover for you. You’re not hiding behind her anymore."
Tila went still—shoulders tense, breath held, the words sinking in like ice water.
Her wide, red-ringed eyes turned toward him, searching his face in the dim gloom, tears glistening on her lashes.
Kael leaned his forehead against hers, breathing in ti with her, syncing their rhythms in the oppressive dark.
"Are you still afraid of this box?"
Her answer was a frantic, silent nod, her body quaking anew.
Tears fell fast now, carving lines down her cheeks, hot against the chill.
"What is it, exactly, that terrifies you?"
Tila choked on a sob, her voice fracturing. "The dark. The cold. The insects... they always ca in the dark. They bit. Crawled. Lila used to keep them away but now—now—"
She cut off with a gasp and dug her fingers into Kael’s shirt, clutching as if he were her only lifeline.
His voice stayed soft, patient, a guiding light in the abyss. "What’s the mory that haunts you the most?"
The air in the box felt heavier.
Damper.
Almost alive with rot and mold and phantom whispers, the scent of decay clinging to every breath.
Kael’s power thrumd low—steady, a heartbeat in the dark, pulsing reassurance without force.
Tila took a breath.
Then another, ragged and uneven.
Finally.
"The cold," she said, her voice thin, barely holding together. "Even in sumr. I’d curl up and still shake. I thought the air would freeze from inside out."
Her voice broke, a fresh wave of sobs rising. He held her closer, his warmth seeping into her like a counter to the mory.
She whispered, "The dark wasn’t just dark. It was hungry. It watched ."
Kael didn’t interrupt, didn’t press. His presence alone urged her to go on, a silent encouragent in the void.
"And the insects," she whispered, flinching even at the word, her body jerking as if feeling them anew. "They’d crawl in at night. I’d hear them before I felt them—first the skitter. Then the legs. Dozens of them, under my clothes. Centipedes in my hair. Beetles biting my thighs. I used to scream... and no one ca."
Her breath shuddered, hitching again, her black eyes squeezing shut against the visions.
"They all heard . Every night. And no one ca."
Kael rested his chin gently atop her head, his hand continuing its slow path along her back.
"You didn’t deserve that," he murmured, his words a balm, simple and true.
"They called Bug-Girl. Rotbox. Laughed when I cried. And the Matron—Gresha—she just looked at like I was filth. I tried so hard, Kael. I sold pudding. I worked. I even stopped crying, thinking it would make them stop locking in here."
She hiccupped through her sobs, her body wracked with the release. "But it didn’t matter. Nothing I did mattered. So I stopped feeling."
"You survived," Kael whispered, holding her tighter, his voice laced with quiet pride. "You survived what was ant to destroy you."
Tila’s cuffed hands clutched Kael tighter, her face buried against his chest, voice cracking as she spoke, frantic with emotion, the words spilling out like a dam finally breaking after years of pressure.
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