Page 54 of Writhe
I freeze for half a second before moving toward it, my fingers trailing the wall for balance. The last time I was here, I found his room. My heartbeat slams against my ribs as I reach the door. My fingers curl around the handle, slick with sweat.
I open it.
And the world drops out from under me.
The room is empty.
Not just empty. Sterile. Hollow.
The bed is gone—the sheets. The air is stagnant, undisturbed. It’s as if no one had ever lived here.
Like Theo had never been here at all.
A choked sound claws its way up my throat. My legs feel weak, barely holding me upright as I stumble into the room, spinning in place, looking for any sign of him. A scrap of fabric. A shoe. A single goddamn sign that I didn’t imagine him.
But there’s nothing.
“A person can’t just disappear,” I whisper. “A person can’t just . . . not exist.”
I grip my arms, my nails biting into my skin. If I hold on hard enough, maybe I won’t splinter apart. Maybe I won’t unravel like a loose thread in a fraying piece of fabric.
He was here. He was real. I know he was real.
The walls feel like they’re closing in. My knees buckle, and I catch myself against the wall, my palm pressing flat to the cold tile. My stomach lurches. A sick, twisting sensation roots itself deep in my gut.
Because now, the questions are creeping in.
The memory of the Doctor’s voice slithers through my mind:Is he?
“No,” I choke out. “No, no, no. He’s real. He’s real.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, shaking my head violently as if I can shake loose the doubt clawing at my brain. But the memories—they’re shifting. Twisting. Blurring at the edges like ink bleeding through wet paper.
Theo’s touch. His voice. The way he felt solid beneath my hands.
But what if . . . ?
What if he was never there?
Theo was my lifeline, my teacher, the one thing that kept me from drowning in this place.
And if he was never real . . . then what does that make me?
The realization crashes over me, a tidal wave I can’t escape, can’t fight, can’t breathe through.
I don’t know what’s real anymore.
Theo. Where is Theo?
He was just here. He was here.
Then—
Hands.
Rough. Unforgiving.
They seize my arms, my waist, yanking me up from the floor. My body jolts from the sudden force, my feet dragging against the tile as they lift me.
