Page 398 of Eternal
All this time, all the pain, the blood, the ghosts chasing me, they knew. They planned it, they wanted me broken.
And I walked right into it, like a damn fool.
My fists clench, nails digging into my skin. I don’t care, I don’t care anymore.
How do you fuck someone over so deep they don’t even know they’re hurt until it’s too late?
I’m screaming inside, screaming at the world, at the ghosts, at the lies that built my life.
And he, the man I just shot… he’s the last piece of a puzzle I don’t even want to finish anymore.
But I have to. Because if this is true… then everything I thought I knew about me was a lie.
I’m broken. Used. Played. And…I’m lost.
110
DAMIR
“Look On Down From The Bridge” by Mazzy Star
Present
I’ve always thought the devil was a man.
Maybe that’s the easiest way to picture it. Men make sense. We want things, power, control, to be feared, to be seen. Every man I’ve ever put down bled out clinging to some idea of himself. Pride. Legacy. Ego. That’s all we are, really, skin stretched over insecurity.
We posture, we bluff, we fight for scraps of meaning.
I know because I’ve done it. Still do, sometimes.
But women… Their strength’s different. Quieter. Meaner. It doesn’t posture. It waits. Watches. Learns where to cut.
They don’t break loudly. They carry things. Bury them. Let the pain ferment into something colder. Smarter. They know how to endure without anyone noticing the cost.
Azra.
She's proof of that. She walked through hell with her mouth shut and her eyes open. She survived things that should’ve hollowed her out. Instead, she built herself from the pieces.
Men break loud. Women break inward. And the ones who survive it? They don’t come back the same. They don’t come back at all. She didn’t. I see it. Clearly.
She’s standing in the middle of it now, the blood, the wreckage, the godless altar. The pastor's body is a heap at her feet. Every guest is dead. The air smells like blood and fire.
And she’s simply... standing there.
I’ve seen her move through blood like it means nothing. I’ve seen her talk circles around men who thought they were in control. And I’ve watched her look at monsters without blinking.
And I’ve fallen in love with her because of it. Not in spite of it.
Her shoulders aren’t set. Her fists aren’t clenched. She’s not triumphant. She looks…lost.
She looks... confused.
Like whatever truth she found here wasn’t the one she expected.
I waited at the back of the room, watching. Blood and broken bodies everywhere. I stepped over them without hesitation. There she was, covered in blood, eyes distant but burning.
The pastor was dead. The place was finally quiet.
