Kelsey didn't know how long it had been since she'd seen the sun.
Sense of time began unraveling in the windowless room, and wherever she was now this was no hospital. There were no beeping machines, no kind voices checking her vitals. Only cold concrete, flickering overhead lights, and the metallic taste of fear that never seemed to leave her tongue.
They'd taken her sometime after Mike stirred.
The night he really started showing signs of movement, she'd jolted awake beside his bed, clutching his hand. She'd seen his lips move, his jaw clench. She'd shouted for help, and when the staff arrived, they were different. Not nurses. Not doctors. Uniforms with sharp collars and golden insignias. They told her they were moving him to another room for his safety.
She never saw where they took him.
Kelsey had screamed, fought, demanded to go with him. That's when they sedated her.
When she woke up, she was alone.
The place they kept her in now was more prison than holding cell. No windows. Just a steel door with a food slot, a metal cot bolted to the floor, and a single surveillance camera in the corner that blinked once every few seconds like a slow heartbeat.
And the whispers had started.
Not from outside. From within.
Voices, not hers creeped through her mind like water through cracks in the ceiling. Some laughed. Some sang. One voice in particular, soft and melodic, never left. It followed her through her dreams, from silence into sobbing.
"He's not coming back."
That voice. Feminine. Serene. Ageless.
"You held him while he slept, but he belongs to someone else now. Something else."
Kelsey pressed her back to the wall, hands pressed to her ears. "Shut up. Shut up, shut up."
But the voice only smiled through her thoughts.
She didn't know how long the isolation had gone on. But her mind was beginning to unravel.
And then, she came.
A soft knock on the door, then a figure cloaked in silver walked in with a graceful gait and a face that seemed carved from pale marble. Her eyes were pitch black reflecting no light, no emotion.
The door opened for the first time in weeks.
Kelsey stood, weak but defiant.
"You're not a doctor," she spat. "Where is Mike? What did you do to him?"
The woman gave a mild smile.
She tilted her head. "You still remember who you are," she said, her voice like silk dragged through sand. "That's rare."
Kelsey backed away. "Get out."
"I'm not here to hurt you," the woman said, though her eyes said otherwise. "I'm here to offer you salvation. Something greater than yourself."
"I don't want anything from you," Kelsey growled.
The woman knelt slowly, bringing her face close to Kelsey's. Her breath smelled of roses and rot. "But you'll take it, little light. Because when they break you and they will, you'll beg for the silence I offer."
The world began to spin and started blurring.
Kelsey tried to scream, but it came out a ragged breath. The room twisted, distorted, her vision blurred by pulses of impossible colors.
The last thing she heard before her mind started fracturing was the name Hecate.
Flashes of memories overwhelmed her mind. Other golden eyed people. Creatures with horns. Her head pulsed like it was going to explode. She felt her mind slipping into a heavy darkness.
When Kelsey finally regained some awareness she felt herself floating in what seemed like water.
Endless black waves, cresting beneath a moonless black sky. She floated, adrift, weightless. The ocean whispered her name, sometimes lovingly, sometimes with mockery. Every wave threatened to pull her under, yet she could never drown. Only drift.
Sometimes, she felt a hand brush hers.
Mike.
She would reach toward him, calling out, but the darkness always pulled him back. Always just out of reach.
When she jolted awake, the room was colder.
This cot's thin mattress offered no comfort. The metal walls vibrated with a low electric hum. But now, a bowl of food sat on the floor, some grayish paste or porridge with a spoon.
Her body ached from starvation, but she couldn't bring herself to eat. It was tainted, like everything else here. Poison, if not for her body, then for her mind.
She felt out of touch. Events that occurred out of reach in her mind. Fragments of conversations drifting away from her. More people with golden eyes and horned creatures laughing as she bled. She kept finding wounds on her body she didn't remember.
That voice in her mind hadn't fully returned. Only fragments.
"You loved him too much to survive without him."
Kelsey sat with her knees pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around them. Her bones ached beneath the weight of despair clenching her chest. Cuts and bruises ached on her body.
She no longer knew what day it was. Time no longer passed. It simply... lingered.
Until the whisper returned, soft as a kiss to the ear.
"He died screaming."
Kelsey's head snapped up. "No."
"They put him in restraints. They pierced his flesh. They locked him in the room with the others and fed him rage until nothing of him remained."
"Shut up!"
"They gave him to the Beast."
Her hands clenched into fists. Her fingernails, brittle and cracked, cut into her palms.
"You know he's not coming back. You've always known."
Tears welled in her eyes. "Please... stop."
"But you don't want him back, do you? Not as he is now. Not as what they made him."
She couldn't answer. She didn't want to believe it. But the memories were fading the sound of his voice, the warmth of his touch. Even his scent was becoming harder to recall.
All that was left was the silence.
The door opened again.
No guards. Just her. Hecate.
No robes this time. Her figure was swathed in living shadow, flickering like smoke. Her hair writhed in slow motion, as if underwater. Her eyes still empty voids settled on Kelsey with something almost tender.
"I told you you'd beg," she said.
Kelsey's voice cracked. "I didn't beg."
"No," Hecate said, stepping forward. "But you broke. And that's enough."
She knelt once more, her voice low and almost maternal. "I can take it all away. The guilt. The waiting. The pain. You'll feel nothing. You'll remember nothing. You'll sleep in the warmth of my power and awaken only when needed."
Kelsey looked up at her, lips trembling.
"I want to see him again."
Hecate smiled.
"You will. But you won't be the same. And neither will he. That's the price."
Kelsey swallowed hard. "Will I hurt people?"
Hecate didn't answer.
Instead, she raised her hand. At her gesture, a flicker of light hovered in the air a soft violet flame, casting no heat. Within it, Kelsey saw a vision. Mike, naked, chained to a slab of steel. His body covered in blood, eyes glowing red, screaming into the void.
Kelsey gasped.
"I can spare you from ever feeling what he's felt," Hecate whispered.
The flame died.
"Say yes, and the pain ends. Say yes, and you'll never cry again. You'll be powerful enough to never feel loss. Ever."
Kelsey's eyes glistened with tears. Her throat tightened.
Her voice, when it came, was barely audible.
"…Yes."
The goddess smiled wider.
"You're mine now."
Hecate reached forward and pressed a single black-tipped finger to Kelsey's forehead. A searing pain ignited through her skull, so sharp and blinding that the scream caught in her throat. Darkness enveloped her like water, warm, suffocating, final.
Images of Mike touching her face flashed in her mind as the darkness crept across her vision.
Kelsey Reed disappeared in that moment.
And something else was born in her place.