Page 56 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
My lungs contract at hearing my middle name. I have not heard anyone speak it aloud since my mother died. She is the only one who ever said it to me, and it was cloaked inside of affection with her voice.
“You have always wanted to leave this place behind. The lab, the chair, your eyes watching and hoping and pleading for this girl? She will wake and she will fear you. It is not for you to have anyone in this life.”
I say nothing. Do nothing.
Water continues to drip. The rats travel closer.
My skin crawls, but I cannot even blink. I am unwillingly rooted.
The weight in my arms feels strangely heavy now.
Not only can I not see the man; I can’t see anything. Not the darkness, not the tunnel, not Karia’s blonde hair beneath my fingers.
Loath to do so, I think of my mom once more. Glimpses and snatches of memories with her are all I have left; everything else is warped by time, and Stein. It is as if every piece of me has spent the past sixteen years without her simply…surviving. I have had no room for anything else. Only to breathe, to eat when I could, grab onto sleep when I knew I would be safe.
My only wasted dreams were spent on Karia because she is alive and whole and…in my fucking arms.
“I’m leaving.” It’s all I say next. I don’t know who is speaking to me and I don’t care. I learned long ago not to waste time on details that don’t matter. Only those which do. Karia Ven, trusting me with her unconscious body, she is what’s important now.
She saved me.
I don’t know when she decided to, but what matters is she did.
I take a step forward.
There is a sound, like slithering. A snake against the flooring.
My heart squeezes, blood thudding between my ears as I twist my head one way, then the other.
I know serpents.
They are the symbol of Writhe, and so any I contained within glass jars were mutilated. Writhe damned me, in its own way. Stein may have been born cruel, but Writhe gave him access to a barbaric expansion of his coldness.
I am not afraid of snakes, but I do so loathe them.
They come closer, like scales whispering against the stone.
My body grows rigid.
I clutch Karia impossiblymore.She is warm against me, her limbs dangling from my hold, her hair beneath my lips as I kiss her, like this is it. The end I have been searching for. The bittersweet finality to a life of longing and grief. Her and I, together dead.
I close my eyes.
The rustling grows closer.
My body trembles.
Is this a new hell Stein has created? A serpent who speaks? Does his bidding? Did God check any limits upon him at all?
The noise stops.
There is a moment of quiet.
Then the same man from before speaks, so close to my ear. “You are not the only one Stein Rule has cursed, Sullen Bram. But you are unlike him, are you not?”
I don’t speak.
I don’t move.
