The eyes—mirrors of sins, fragments of something deeper, darker—reflected back as she stared, hollow but alive in the stillness. She felt the starvation of the beast within her, pacing, clawing, a quiet desperation gnawing at her ribs. Her wings spread like the golden dawn's promise, a cruel mirage of escape, yet the weight of life pulled her back, anchoring her to the earth.

In the quiet hours, he whispered, we’re always alone, and the words nestled like burrs in her mind, scratching, lingering. She felt their truth seep in, unavoidable and raw, threading itself into the fabric of her mind like stitches holding together a wound that refused to heal.

Vivid dreams clawed at her in sleep—visions of other lives, other faces, shadowed figures speaking to her in gestures, fingers dancing in sign language, secrets woven in the air. She would wake in paralysis, shackled in silence, eyes wide as if staring into a void that she knew was watching her, always watching.

Scars of hope, she thought, tracing the lines on her arms, the stories she'd written in flesh, layered beneath the numb veil of sedatives. She had cut past ties in time, sharp and clean, slicing away the tethers that bound her to memory, to faces that no longer lingered in her dreams. Every attempt had been a rebirth, each suicide a reawakening of truth. And yet, she had awoken again, the wilting pulse of survival pressing her forward.

The elders would decide—her fate, her future, as if it were some verdict to be handed down from faceless arbiters of her despair. She walked into the darkness as if it were her home, her familiar lover, arms open to its hollow embrace, knowing it would never abandon her. There were no more tomorrows, only a slow descent into silence, punctuated by the beat of a dying heart.

And as the night stretched on, she listened