Lena starts breathing too fast again behind us.
“No,” she gasps, tone breaking into panic. “No, no, we can’t go out there, not in the open. Not with that thing still moving between the buildings. It’s waiting. The music… the lights… it’ll fucking find us the second we step outside.”
Her friend Lotty tries to hush her, but Lena’s eyes are wild, darting between us.
“And what if it’s just people messing with us?” Mattie asks quietly, her voice low and edged with desperate hope.
I side-eye her sharply because the suggestion lands like a slap.
“What if they know exactly who we are?” she continues. “What we fear. Where we came from. What if they’ve been watching us this whole time, feeding us exactly what will break us?”
“Mattie is right, Lena,” Lotty murmurs, crouched beside her friend, one hand rubbing circles on her back. “What if this is all a sick game? Maybe we were supposed to be here the entire time. Maybe someone planned this.”
My gut drops into a cold, sickening plunge that leaves me hollow.
Because I don’t know what’s worse—the idea that this is some orchestrated hell crafted by traffickers who get off on watching broken girls unravel, who studied our pasts, our traumas, and our worst memories just to weaponize them…
…or that there’s something far more sinister and unnatural out there. Something that simply reaches into us and pulls our nightmares out like wet organs, wearing them as skin.
My mind is too fractured to tell the difference anymore. Both possibilities feel true at once, overlapping in nauseating layers.
Lena shakes her head forcefully, still curled against the wall.
“It’s not people,” she whispers, terror lacing every word. “People don’t move like that first shadow did.”
No one has the answer because the truth is, whether it’s men dressed up or something made from pure horror, we’re already caught, and we’re already being played with.
I press my forehead against the cold, filthy wall and close my eyes for a second, the dark behind my lids feeling too familiar, too welcoming.
After silently debating, the answer settles over me like a death sentence. There’s only one way forward, and we have to keep moving. Whether we like it or not, whether we’re ready or not, this place isn’t going to let us hide in here forever.
This room feels safe now, but it’s the kind of safety that only exists because something hasn’t found you yet. It’s just a fragile illusion held together by four walls and a door. One that could shatter the second something decides to test it.
I lift my head and glance at the others, and I can see they’re exhausted and terrified, because so am I.
But fear doesn’t stop time from passing. Sooner or later we’ll need food and water. And then what? We don’t move and fucking die in here? Let this room become our tomb?
The thought settles like lead in my chest.
Whatever this island is, whatever horrors are lurking beyond these walls, we aren’t getting off it by hiding. We need to find a way out, and if that means stepping back into the rain, then that’s what we’ll have to do.
I stride over to Lena and offer her my hands. She stares at them for a long moment, eyes shiny with tears and distant, like she’s seeing every bad thing those hands have ever touched.
Then her gaze lifts to mine, and I stare at her, really stare into her, so she can see that we’re in this together, no matter how broken we are.
After a few hesitating seconds, she finally slides her cold, trembling hands into mine, and I pull her up. Her legs shake at first, but she stands, and for a moment our eyes stay locked, two survivors silently agreeing not to let the dark take the other first.
Mattie watches us, then nods once, and we all start moving down the crumbling hallway toward the stairs.
???
When we step out of the building and into the rain, we move cautiously, staying low as we weave in and out of cover. Behind open doorways, piles of rubble, and clusters of thick wildflowers.
Lena stays glued to my side, her hand still gripping mine, and Mattie leads, signalling us to stop and crouch every few moments. But the streets feel too open and exposed.
“Down!” Mattie suddenly hisses, and we scramble into a narrow alley, pressing our backs against a disintegrating brick wall.
My heart is pounding so hard it hurts, but I carefully lean forward and glimpse around the corner with one wide eye, and my stomach drops like a stone.