Forbidden by Fate (pt. 4)
part one, part two, part three, part four, next parts coming soon…
summary; Theo rescues you, but can you really trust him?
warnings; PTSD episodes, panic attacks, descriptions of captivity and violence, angst.
a/n; after SIX months it’s finally here LMAO I’m so sorry for the wait, this series is very dear to me and I really didn’t want to post something I didn’t like.
Sleep should have come easily. Your body was exhausted, heavy beneath the blankets, curled beside Theo in the quiet dimness of the room. But rest never truly found you.
Instead, the darkness behind your eyelids betrayed you.
The memories returned the moment your mind loosened its grip on consciousness—sharp, merciless flashes from that night. The place where they took you. Cold stone beneath your knees. The suffocating smell of damp and iron. Faces hidden behind masks that seemed to grin in the shadows.
Your chest tightened even in sleep.
You heard it again—the laughter. Cruel. Delighted.
And then the pain.
The Cruciatus curse tore through your body in your memory just as vividly as it had that night. White-hot agony flooding your veins, seizing every nerve, forcing screams from your throat until your voice had broken into something hoarse and unrecognizable. It had felt as though your bones were splintering from the inside out, as though your own body had turned against you.
Even now, your wrists throbbed with phantom pain where the ropes had bitten into your skin. They burned, as if the fibers were still digging into them.
Your scalp stung too—raw, tender—where Bellatrix had grabbed fistfuls of your hair and yanked your head back with violent delight. You could almost feel her breath near your ear again, hear the madness laced through her voice.
It wasn’t a dream.
It was a reliving.
Every sound. Every scream. Every unbearable second.
Your mind replayed it with ruthless clarity, forcing you to feel it all over again.
Something inside you had shattered in that dungeon. You were certain of it. As if someone had reached into your chest and torn out a piece of your soul, leaving behind a hollow ache you couldn’t explain, couldn’t fill, couldn’t escape.
Everything hurt.
Your body twisted beneath the blankets, tossing and turning, desperate to outrun the images clawing through your mind. Your breath came quicker. Your fingers clenched in the sheets.
Stop.
Please stop.
But the memories refused to release you.
And suddenly you were awake.
You jolted upright with a gasp, dragging in air like someone who had just been pulled from deep water. Your chest heaved violently as panic flooded your lungs. Sweat clung to your skin, soaked through your clothes, strands of hair plastered against your forehead.
The room was silent.
Dead quiet.
For a moment you didn’t move, your wide eyes darting around the darkness as your heart hammered against your ribs.
Then you heard it.
Soft. Rhythmic.
Theo.
He was asleep on the couch across the room, his breathing deep and even, a faint snore escaping him every now and then. Completely unaware. Safe.
The sight of him should have comforted you.
Instead, your chest tightened painfully. Your gaze lingered on him, and within seconds your vision blurred with tears.
How could you trust him?
The thought cut through you like ice. He had the mark. The Dark Mark. Theo was a Death Eater. Your mind spiraled instantly, feeding the fear that still lived in your bones.
What if everything he’d done for you was a lie?
What if every gentle word, every reassuring look, every act of kindness was nothing more than a carefully crafted performance?
A ruse. A way to earn your trust. To get close enough to learn everything he could about Dumbledore’s Army. About Wizards Anonymous. About the people hiding, fighting, surviving.
Your breathing quickened.
What if this was all a trap?
What if he was waiting for the right moment to drag you back there? Back into that dungeon. Back into their hands.
Your stomach twisted violently.
No.
You couldn’t go back.
You wouldn’t go back.
The thought alone made your chest seize with panic.
You didn’t know Theo anymore. Not really. Two years had passed since you had last seen him. Two years of war. Two years of darkness creeping into every corner of the wizarding world. Two years for someone to change.
What if the boy you once knew was gone?
What if the darkness had swallowed him whole?
You couldn’t risk it. Your fingers trembled as tears slid silently down your pale cheeks and you looked at him one last time. He slept peacefully, completely unaware of the storm raging inside your mind.
Slowly—carefully—you slipped out of the sofa.
The floor felt cold beneath your bare feet as you tiptoed toward the door, every step deliberate, cautious. Your breath came shallow and controlled, as if even breathing too loudly might wake him.
Please don’t be locked. You silently pleaded as you approached the door, your fingers wrapped around the doorknob.
You turned it.
It didn’t move.
Locked.
Your chest tightened instantly.
Panic began creeping in again, clawing up your throat. Your hands shook as you tried to steady your breathing.
Think. Think. Think.
Your wand.
Where is your wand?
Your eyes darted around the dim room.
Of course. They had taken it.
Your pulse pounded in your ears as you scanned desperately for anything that could help you open the door.
And then you saw it. Theo’s wand. It rested casually on the coffee table beside the couch where he slept.
Your stomach twisted.
No, you shouldn't.
You hesitated, your breath hitching. But you didn’t have a choice. If you wanted to leave… if you wanted to escape this place before doubt swallowed you whole… you needed it.
You inhaled slowly, steadying yourself, before taking a careful step toward the table.
Then another.
And another.
Each movement was painfully slow, deliberate, your body tense with the fear of waking him. You barely breathed, afraid even the smallest sound might stir him.
Your fingers finally closed around the wand. You froze in place.
Theo didn’t move, he was still asleep.
You exhaled shakily and turned toward the door, heart thundering in your chest as you raised the wand.
“Alohomora,” you whispered, your voice barely more than a breath as you flicked the wand gently.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then—
Click.
The sound was almost impossibly quiet, but to you it echoed like thunder.
The door was unlocked.
Your hand lingered on the knob for just a second before you glanced back at Theo. He looked peaceful. Vulnerable, even.
Guilt twisted sharply in your chest. An apologetic smile flickered briefly across your face, though tears still blurred your vision.
But you couldn’t trust him. Not anymore.
How could you?
The wand slipped from your fingers and clattered softly against the floor.
You didn’t even care about the noise.
The moment the door opened, you ran, out into the night, without looking back.
The cold hit you the moment you stepped outside. It sliced through the thin fabric of the clothes Theo had lent you, biting into your skin like a thousand tiny needles. A violent shiver ran through your body, your teeth nearly chattering as the early winter air wrapped around you.
But adrenaline soon drowned it out.
Your body moved before your mind could even catch up, feet pounding against the cobblestone as you ran. Faster. Further. Anywhere but there.
Don’t let them catch you.
The thought repeated over and over in your mind like a frantic chant, pushing you forward when your lungs burned and your legs trembled.
Don’t let them catch you.
Your eyes darted wildly around the unfamiliar streets, searching desperately for something—anything—that looked familiar. A building. A sign. A corner you recognized.
But everything looked strange. Wrong. Unfamiliar.
Your heart pounded violently against your ribs as panic threatened to swallow you whole.
You had no idea where you were. None.
The realization made your stomach twist painfully.
But then another thought pushed through the fear.
You weren’t there.
You weren’t in that house.
You weren’t in that dungeon.
You weren’t trapped in that cage anymore.
The realization hit you so suddenly that your vision blurred. Your eyes burned with tears.
You were free.
Tears of pure, overwhelming relief. But you forced them back.
Because you couldn’t stop now, not until you were somewhere safe.
Your breathing came in harsh, ragged pulls, your chest rising and falling violently with every desperate inhale. The cold air scraped painfully down your throat, making your lungs ache.
Your arms had begun to feel numb, your fingers stiff and trembling. Angry red patches bloomed across your knuckles where the cold had bitten into your skin.
Theo’s clothes did almost nothing to protect you from the weather.
The early winter wind cut straight through the fabric, through your skin, sinking deep into your bones.
But you didn’t stop, you couldn’t. Not even if your mind screamed in pain, your legs continued moving restlessly.
Then something caught your eye--a faint flicker of yellow light in the distance. Your steps faltered for a moment as you stared.
A lamp.
Crooked. Leaning awkwardly to one side as if it had been fighting gravity for years and was finally starting to lose.
The metal was dark with rust, the base slightly bent, its frame worn down by time and weather. It looked as though a strong wind might knock it over completely.
But you knew that lamp.
Your heart stuttered in your chest.
It wasn’t just any street lamp.
It was the lamp.
The oldest one in all of Diagon Alley.
The Ministry of Magic had refused to remove it for centuries despite countless complaints about how unstable it looked. According to them, it had stood there for more than three hundred years and was now considered a historical artifact.
You remembered the endless jokes about it.
The late nights behind the bar at the Leaky Cauldron, laughing with your coworkers about how one day the thing would finally collapse and take half the street with it.
Your chest tightened.
It had to be it.
Hope surged through you so suddenly it almost hurt. You stumbled forward again, navigating through the narrow alleyways with renewed urgency. Every turn revealed something more familiar than the last.
A crooked shop sign. A shuttered storefront. A narrow archway you had walked through a hundred times before.
Your pulse raced.
You were close.
You knew you were.
Home.
The word echoed through your mind like a lifeline.
The cold continued to slice through you, the wind tugging at your hair and clothes, but you barely felt it anymore. Your body ached, every muscle screaming from exhaustion, yet you kept running.
You glanced over your shoulder again and again, paranoia gripping you tightly.
Were they following you?
Were there dark figures lurking somewhere in the shadows?
Watching. Waiting.
Your breathing grew even faster, uneven and desperate.
Your body hurt. Your mind hurt even more.
But something deep inside you refused to let you stop.
You can do it.
Just a little further.
You’re almost there.
That single thought kept pushing you forward. One more street. One more turn. And when you turned left into the narrow road, your heart nearly stopped.
There it was.
Your house. Just down the street.
For a moment your legs nearly gave out beneath you.
You stared at it as if it might disappear the moment you blinked.
You couldn’t believe it.
After everything… after those endless hours trapped in that place…
You were actually here.
Something inside you trembled with disbelief, as if you expected the Death Eaters to appear at any second and rip this away from you too.
Your vision blurred again.
Tears burned behind your eyes even before you reached the door.
You were so close.
So close to locking that door behind you.
So close to escaping the nightmare that had consumed the last days of your life.
You sprinted the final few steps and grabbed the doorknob.
You twisted it, but it didn’t move.
Locked.
Of course it was locked. You had locked it yourself the morning you left for work.
Before everything happened. Before they took you.
Panic surged through you again, sharp and suffocating. For a single terrifying second your mind went blank.
But then— the spare key.
Your breath hitched as the memory surfaced through the chaos in your mind. You always kept one hidden beneath one of the flower pots on the porch.
Your hands fumbled desperately through the row of plants, knocking soil loose as you lifted one after another with trembling fingers.
The small metal key gleamed faintly beneath the pot and in a second relief rushed through you so violently your knees nearly buckled.
You grabbed it with shaking hands, nearly dropping it twice before managing to shove it into the lock.
The door clicked open.
You rushed inside and slammed the door shut behind you with a force that echoed through the quiet house. Your hands immediately fumbled for the lock again, twisting it tight as if that thin piece of metal could keep the entire world out.
Only then did your body finally give in. Your back slid slowly down the door until you collapsed onto the floor, hands pressed against your forehead, your body shaking violently.
And that was when everything broke.
The tears came all at once.
Not quiet. Not gentle. Loud. Bouncing off the walls.
They ripped out of you in raw, broken sobs that echoed through the empty house. Your chest heaved violently as you cried, every breath shuddering through you like it hurt to exist.
Your lip trembled uncontrollably as you struggled to inhale between the sobs, but the sounds wouldn’t stop escaping you.
All the fear. The pain. The pure agony.
All the terror you had forced yourself to hold back.
It poured out of you all at once, filling the silent house with the sound of your grief.
You remained there for a long time—long enough that the frantic rhythm of your sobs slowly dissolved into exhausted silence.
Your back stayed pressed firmly against the door as if your body alone could keep the entire world outside. Your knees were pulled tightly against your chest, arms wrapped around them so hard your fingers had begun to ache.
At some point the night had fully settled.
The faint gray light of evening had faded into darkness, leaving your house wrapped in a quiet so deep it almost rang in your ears.
Once your crying finally stopped, the world outside crept back in.
The gentle humming of crickets filled the air like a soft, endless song. Somewhere nearby, leaves rustled quietly in the breeze. Most of them had already fallen with the turning season, but a few stubborn brown ones still clung to their branches, trembling whenever the wind passed through.
It should have been peaceful.
It should have felt safe.
But peace never reached you.
Your body remained tense, every muscle pulled tight like a wire ready to snap. Even the smallest unfamiliar sound made your shoulders jerk.
A distant footstep. The creak of wood. The faint scrape of something shifting outside.
Each noise sent a spike of panic through you.
Your head would snap toward the door instantly, heart pounding, breath caught halfway in your throat.
Your mind never allowed simple explanations.
Those weren’t neighbors walking home. They weren’t late-night wanderers crossing the street.
They were Death Eaters. They were coming for you again.
Any second now the door would burst open. Any second masked figures would drag you back into the dark.
Your eyes drifted toward the kitchen without meaning to, already imagining the knife drawer. The thought came automatically now—grab something, anything, to defend yourself.
Your hands curled tighter around your legs. You didn’t even have your wand. The realization made your stomach twist violently.
You were wandless. Completely defenseless.
And the worst part was you knew you couldn’t replace it anytime soon. Wands weren’t cheap, not by a long shot, and right now simply surviving felt expensive enough.
Walking through the wizarding world during a war without a wand was practically a death sentence.
Especially after what had already happened to you.
Your breathing began to grow uneven again, panic creeping slowly back into your chest.
You forced yourself to take a shaky breath.
Then another.
Your hands drifted down to your wrists, fingers brushing gently over the dark bruises still staining the skin there. The marks were angry shades of purple and red, reminders of the ropes that had once dug into them.
You rubbed the tender skin slowly, trying to ease the dull ache that still lingered beneath the surface.
Your fingers trembled.
Only then did you really notice it.
The fabric.
You were still wearing Theo’s clothes.
The realization settled over you slowly, and with it came something even more dangerous.
The faint scent of him still clung to the material.
Warm. Familiar.
Safe.
Your fingers instinctively tightened in the fabric of the sleeve, pulling it slightly closer around yourself.
Merlin help you… you didn’t want to take it off.
Because it smelled like him.
Because wrapped inside it, for a fleeting moment, the chaos inside your mind seemed to quiet just a little.
Like an anchor thrown into stormy water.
And you hated that.
You hated how your chest tightened when you thought about him.
Hated how your mind kept drifting back to the image of him asleep on that couch, peaceful and unaware.
You squeezed your eyes shut.
You shouldn’t be thinking about him.
Not like this.
Your thoughts twisted painfully.
Maybe you shouldn’t have left.
The idea slipped in quietly, like a whisper you hadn’t meant to hear.
Maybe you should have stayed, talked to him, asked him where he had been all these years. Asked him what had happened to him during the war. Asked him why he had helped you.
Your chest ached with the memory of his voice, the way he had looked at you, the strange gentleness that had been there.
You swallowed hard.
Maybe you should have trusted him.
Maybe—
“No.”
The word left your lips in a hoarse whisper. You shook your head quickly, as if physically pushing the thought away. That was stupid. Dangerously stupid.
Theo had the Dark Mark burned into his skin. He was a Death Eater.
Your fingers dug into the fabric of his sleeve, grip tightening almost painfully. The people who carried that same mark were the ones who had done this to you.
The ones who had left bruises on your wrists. Who had dragged endless screams from your throat. The ones who had carved scars into your body and mind that would probably never truly fade.
He was one of them.
Your chest rose and fell unevenly. You needed to stop questioning yourself, stop wondering if you had made the wrong decision.
Leaving had been the only safe choice-the only logical one.
You had done the right thing.
You had to believe that.
That night, sleep remained something distant, something unreachable, as though the simple act of resting had been taken from you along with so many other things. You lay in your bed long after the house had gone still, your body curled beneath the blankets, yet every muscle remained tense, rigid, as if even the softness of the mattress could not convince your body that it was safe to relax. The room was familiar—every piece of furniture, every creak in the floorboards, every faint outline of shadows on the walls belonged to a place you had once called your sanctuary—but your mind refused to believe it.
The darkness pressed in around you, thick and heavy, and you found yourself staring at the ceiling for hours, afraid that if you allowed your eyes to close for more than a moment something terrible would happen.
At first it was just the wind brushing against the trees outside, the quiet whisper of dry leaves scraping against one another, but even that was enough to send your heart racing violently. The moment the sound reached your ears, your body reacted before your mind had time to reason with it—you shot upright in bed, breath catching sharply in your throat as panic rushed through you like lightning. Your eyes darted immediately toward the window, wide and searching, as if you expected to see masked figures standing there in the dark, waiting for the right moment to break in.
Your chest rose and fell rapidly while you listened.
Was it the wind?
Or footsteps?
Your mind never gave you the comfort of the simpler answer. Instead, it fed your fear relentlessly, twisting every harmless noise into something sinister. The branches scraping against the wall sounded like movement—robes brushing against stone, someone shifting their weight quietly outside. The soft creak of wood somewhere in the house sounded like a door opening, like someone stepping carefully through the hallway.
And the worst part was the feeling that refused to leave you.
The sensation that someone was watching.
You couldn’t see them, you couldn’t hear them clearly, but your mind insisted they were there somewhere in the darkness, just out of sight, patient and silent, waiting to drag you back into the nightmare you had barely escaped.
You threw the blankets aside and climbed out of bed, your feet touching the cold wooden floor as you hurried to the window, your hands trembling slightly as you pulled the curtain aside just enough to glance outside.
Nothing.
The garden sat quietly under the pale glow of the moon. The bushes swayed gently when the wind passed through them, and the branches cast strange shapes across the ground, but there was no one there.
No movement.
No shadows creeping closer.
Just the night.
Still, the unease never left your chest.
Eventually you returned to bed, but sleep remained shallow and fragile. Every time your eyes drifted shut another sound would pull you violently back to consciousness—the distant hoot of an owl, the faint creaking of the house settling, another rustle of wind moving through the dying autumn leaves.
By the time morning arrived, the pale grey light of dawn slowly creeping through your curtains, it felt as though you had barely rested at all.
Your body ached with exhaustion, yet the tension inside you never eased.
Still, you forced yourself out of bed.
Normality felt like the only thing holding you together now, the only fragile thread keeping you from completely unraveling.
Standing in front of the mirror, you examined the damage left behind.
The bruises along your wrists were the worst of it, dark bands of purple and red circling your skin like cruel reminders of the ropes that had bound you. The sight of them made your stomach twist painfully, but you forced yourself to keep looking. With slow, careful movements, you reached for the makeup you kept in the small drawer beside the sink, your fingers trembling as you began to layer concealer over the marks, blending and covering them as best as you could.
Your eyes burned while you worked.
The skin around them was swollen and red from crying, the faint shadows beneath them making you look far more fragile than you wanted anyone to see.
You blinked rapidly, trying to keep the tears from returning.
You refused to cry again.
Not here. Not today.
Getting to work proved harder than you expected.
Your usual route felt impossible now--every street corner held the possibility of memory, every familiar turn threatened to drag you back to that moment when everything had gone wrong. When you approached the path you normally took, the realization hit you like a physical blow—that was where they had found you, where they had taken you, where the world had suddenly collapsed around you.
Your chest tightened instantly.
Without even thinking, you turned away from that street and chose another, forcing your feet down unfamiliar paths instead. It took longer this way, weaving through quieter alleys and streets you rarely used, but you couldn’t bring yourself to go near the place where it had happened.
Your hands remained clenched tightly the entire walk, your nails digging deep into the skin of your palms as if the sharp sting might keep you grounded whenever your thoughts began to spiral again.
Eventually, the familiar sign of the Leaky Cauldron appeared ahead of you.
Your steps slowed.
For a moment you simply stood there, staring at the building as if you weren’t quite sure you were ready to step inside again.
Then you forced yourself forward. Pulling your keys from your pocket, you unlocked the door and pushed it open.
The small bell above the entrance rang immediately, the soft chime echoing through the café in a way that felt painfully normal. The smell of fresh coffee and warm bread drifted through the air, mingling with the quiet sounds of morning preparations.
For a brief moment, it felt like stepping back into another version of your life—one where nothing terrible had happened, where the world still made sense.
Then your coworker noticed you.
“YN!” She rushed toward you instantly, relief and concern written clearly across her face. “Oh thank Merlin! What happened? You’ve been gone for four days!”
Four days.
The words echoed through your mind like a distant sound.
Four days since you had been taken.
Four days since the nightmare began.
Four days since everything inside you had been ripped apart.
And yet somehow the world had kept moving.
Your chest tightened painfully.
How could it have only been four days?
It felt like an eternity.
It felt like you had lived through years of fear and pain inside that dungeon, every moment stretching endlessly as they pushed you further and further past the limits of what you thought you could survive.
Your wrists still burned.
Your body still remembered the ropes digging into your skin.
Your mind still echoed with the sound of your own screams.
Your heart felt hollow now, like something essential had been torn out and never returned.
How were you supposed to explain that to someone?
How could you possibly put that kind of horror into words?
Especially when the only thing you truly wanted was to forget it had ever happened at all.
Your vision blurred before you even realized you were crying.
Tears filled your eyes instantly, spilling down your cheeks as your lip trembled uncontrollably.
Your coworker noticed right away.
“YN?” she asked softly.
But that gentle tone was all it took for the fragile control you had been clinging to break completely.
A sob escaped you before you could stop it, your voice cracking as you tried to apologize through the sudden wave of emotion.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered weakly, your voice trembling with the fear and exhaustion you had tried so hard to bury.
Her arms wrapped around you almost immediately, holding you in a careful, comforting embrace as one of her hands moved slowly across your back.
“What happened?” she asked gently.
The question sat heavily in your chest.
You swallowed hard before forcing out the only answer you could manage. “Death Eaters.”
The moment the words left your lips, your arms tightened around her instinctively, clinging to her as if letting go might cause the world to collapse again.
She pulled back slightly, her eyes widening in shock as she stared at you.
“What?” she breathed.
Her hands moved to your shoulders as she looked at your tear-streaked face.
“They took you?”
You couldn’t say the word. You couldn’t bring yourself to form the simple affirmative answer. So you nodded instead, quickly and desperately, your lips pressed tightly together to keep yourself from sobbing again.
Shame burned through you immediately.
You felt pathetic.
Standing there crying in front of your coworker like this.
You hated it.
Hated how weak you looked.
Hated how helpless you felt.
Like something inside you had been shattered and put back together wrong.
You couldn’t keep falling apart like this.
You needed it to stop.
You wiped your tears away quickly with both hands, dragging in a deep breath in a desperate attempt to steady yourself before forcing a small smile onto your face.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” you said quickly, your hands moving nervously as you spoke, gesturing in a way you normally never did. “I just… want everything to go back to normal.”
You tried to sound casual.
Tried to make it seem like the past four days had been nothing more than a bad memory that would fade if you ignored it long enough.
Your coworker watched you for a moment before nodding slowly.
“Yes… of course.”
Then she added quietly, “I told Margaret the owner you were out sick.”
Relief softened your expression slightly.“Thank you,” you murmured, offering her a grateful smile.
And just like that, you clocked in for your shift.
You moved through the café as you always had—taking orders, carrying trays, greeting customers with polite smiles—but everything felt wrong.
Every loud noise made your skin crawl.
When someone shouted across the room, your shoulders jerked before you could stop yourself.
When a chair scraped harshly across the floor, your heart jumped painfully in your chest.
Still, you forced yourself to keep smiling.
To keep moving.
To be the friendly waitress everyone expected you to be.
But the bruises on your wrists lingered beneath the fading makeup, the purple marks slowly reappearing as the hours passed, reminders of the cruelty you had endured.
And somewhere deep inside you, the echo of Crucio still lived on, like a ghost of pain moving through your veins, flooding you with fear every time something unexpected happened.
By the time your shift ended, your head throbbed and your nerves felt completely frayed.
You clocked out quickly before the next shift arrived.
You didn’t want to see their worried expressions.
You didn’t want to answer their questions.
And most of all, you didn’t want to lie and pretend that everything was alright when you felt like you were barely holding yourself together.
☆*:・ﾟ
Coming back home did not bring the relief you had hoped for.
The moment the door closed behind you and the quiet settled once again around the house, the fragile sense of control you had been forcing yourself to maintain all day began to crack. The walk home had been exhausting enough—every step tense, every shadow suspicious—but inside your house the silence felt heavier, thicker, like something pressing down on your lungs.
You barely made it past the doorway before exhaustion hit you.
Your hands moved automatically, almost mechanically, as you changed into something more comfortable. The clothes from work felt suffocating on your skin, like they still carried the weight of every glance, every forced smile, every moment you had pretended to be fine. You peeled them off slowly, your fingers trembling as you pulled on a loose shirt and soft trousers.
You walked into the kitchen, a warm cup of tea could help your roaring nerves for sure. But the energy that had carried you through the day vanished completely.
It was as if your body suddenly remembered everything it had been trying to ignore.
Your legs felt weak.
Your chest tightened.
And before you could even make it out of the kitchen, your body sank to the floor.
You didn’t choose the corner deliberately, but some instinct pulled you there—the narrow space between the counter and the cabinet, where the drawer with the knives sat only inches away.
You folded in on yourself immediately, drawing your knees tightly against your chest, arms wrapping around them until your body became as small as possible. Your back pressed into the corner, shoulders curled inward, head lowered.
Small.
If you were small, maybe nothing would notice you.
Your eyes flicked once toward the drawer where the knives were kept.
You needed to stay close to them.
Just in case.
Just in case someone came through that door again.
The house was completely silent.
No voices.
No footsteps.
No movement.
And that silence began to suffocate you, because silence left too much room for your mind. In an instant, the memories slipped in slowly, like shadows creeping through cracks.
Then they came all at once. Their weight crashing on your lungs, your entire body.
The masks.
The way they stared at you from behind dark eyeholes that showed no humanity, no hesitation, only amusement.
The ropes biting into your wrists.
The rough hands gripping your arms.
The nails digging into your skin when they forced you down.
The kicks that knocked the breath from your lungs.
The laughter. That taunting sound every time you begged for mercy in a merciless world.
Your breathing began to quicken without you realizing it.
Each memory pulled another one behind it, dragging you deeper back into the darkness, the coldness of the dungeon.
You could almost smell it again—the damp stone, the stale air.
Your chest tightened violently.
Your breath came faster.
Too fast.
The feeling crept back in. The one that had haunted you all night. That someone was watching.
That someone was right outside the door.
Or standing behind you.
Or hiding somewhere in the house.
Your eyes darted around the kitchen wildly, your body tensing as if you expected to see them appear at any moment.
But the house remained empty.
Still.
And somewhere beneath the rising panic, another thought surfaced.
Theo.
Your chest tightened painfully.
The image of him sleeping on the sofa returned to your mind so suddenly it almost felt real—the quiet rise and fall of his chest, the soft sound of his breathing, the calm that had filled the room before you ran.
You squeezed your eyes shut.
You wished things were different.
You begged that his heart wasn’t as tainted as the mark burned into his forearm.
You wished you didn’t have to question every moment you had shared with him, every memory that had once meant something.
You wished you weren’t afraid of him now.
Your fingers tightened around the fabric of your sleeves.
You wished you had stayed in that small house—that quiet room with him sleeping on the sofa.
The thought slipped through your mind before you could stop it.
Maybe you could have talked, you could have asked him why—why did he help you? Why did he risk everything for you?
Maybe things wouldn’t feel so broken now.
You wished the war had never started.
Never torn apart the fragile pieces of the life you once had.
Never taken from your grasp the people who had anchored you, the small moments that had once made you smile without effort.
Theo had been part of that.
Part of your life.
He was your entire world.
And now everything about him felt uncertain.
At least he’s alive, you thought weakly. That thought alone made your chest ache.
Your gaze dropped slowly to your trembling hands resting in your lap.
Your pulse throbbed violently against your temples, each beat echoing loudly in your skull. Your vision began to blur at the edges, the kitchen fading in and out of focus as your breathing spiraled into something erratic and uncontrolled.
Until you felt unbearable, indescribable pain.
It happened suddenly, vividly.
Your shoulder blades burned as if someone had grabbed your arms again and wrenched them painfully behind your back. The memory crashed into you with such force that your body jerked forward, a strangled sound leaving your throat.
You could feel it.
The pressure of the rope, the pointless twisting to get away from it. The numbness of your arms forced backwards until it felt like they might tear from their sockets. The pain that spread across your chest like fire.
Your own voice echoed faintly in your ears, distant and desperate.
“Take it off!”
Your eyes snapped down to your hands, once again.
The faint scratch marks across your skin suddenly stood out more clearly. Evidence of how you clawed at your own wrists when the ropes tightened too much, your nails digging into your skin in a frantic attempt to free yourself.
“Please! It hurts!”
Your chest heaved violently as the memory consumed you.
Your clothes suddenly felt unbearably heavy, like they were pressing down on you, restricting your breathing, just like the kicks on your stomach felt.
You couldn’t get enough air.
You couldn’t move properly.
Your throat tightened.
“No! Please!”
Your hands flew up suddenly, gripping the sides of your neck as if you could anchor yourself back into the present.
But the memories wouldn’t stop.
“Stop! Please! It hurts!”
You felt your knees burning, as if you were forced into a kneeling position again.
Your hands dropped to your chest, striking against it weakly as if you could physically force the panic away.
Your lips parted, desperate for air, but only broken gasps escaped.
Tears streamed freely down your face now, hot and unstoppable.
“I don’t know anything!”
You nearly collapsed fully onto the floor, your body sliding down until the cold kitchen tiles pressed against your overheated skin.
Cold. Just like the floor in the Dungeon.
“Please! I can’t—don’t hurt me”
Your hands flew to your head, gripping your hair tightly, your nails digging painfully into your scalp as if you could somehow contain the chaos inside your mind.
You couldn’t stop this.
You couldn’t make it stop.
Then the sound finally tore its way out of your chest.
A raw, broken sob.
It was loud enough to echo through the empty house, shaking your entire body as it left past your lips. Your voice cracked painfully with the force of it, the sound burning against your throat, your lips dry and trembling.
Another sob followed.
Then another.
"No—Please! Please stop!"
Soon you were crying uncontrollably, your entire body trembling as the sounds poured out of you without restraint.
Your hands tugged at your clothes, gripping the fabric tightly, trying desperately to hold onto something—anything—that might ground you again.
But nothing stopped the memories.
Nothing stopped the fear.
And the sobs kept coming, louder and more desperate, filling the empty house as if the walls themselves were forced to witness the pain you could no longer hold inside.
this is why im addicted to angst
