Chapter 9: The Things We Pretend Not to Feel
The morning after didn't feel like morning. The power was still on, the clock still blinked its steady digital pulse, but everything else outside the window looked like the sky had forgotten how to start a day.
Aria hadn't moved much.
She lay there, blanket tangled around her legs, one arm tucked under her head. Selene was still beside her, awake but unmoving, watching the ceiling like it might change if she stared long enough. There was a silence between them that wasn't heavy or awkward — it was just thick. Charged. Like the moment between a breath and the choice to speak.
Aria rolled onto her side, pulling the blanket up to her chest. "You're not a dream, right?"
Selene finally looked at her, forest - green eyes steady. "No."
"I didn't think so," Aria said, quieter now. "But part of me hoped. Just a little."
Selene didn't respond right away. She just reached out, brushing Aria's knuckles with hers. The touch was barely there, but it made Aria's breath stutter. Last night — the kiss — it hadn't just cracked her open, it had turned something on. Something raw and too bright to name.
"I didn't sleep," Aria admitted, like it mattered.
"Me neither."
"I kept thinking… what if it was just one of those things? Like, adrenaline, end - of - the - world timing, panic emotions."
Selene gave a tiny nod. "Could've been."
"But it wasn't."
"No," Selene said, soft but firm. "It wasn't."
They stayed like that a moment longer, and Aria wanted so badly to close the space between them again. But she didn't. Something about this morning felt different. Not cold, but real. No lightning, no storm — just aftermath.
Her phone buzzed against the nightstand. The vibration made them both flinch.
Aria reached for it, blinking at the screen. Two unread texts from Jules.
Any update? We're heading underground soon. You still okay?
Niko says the ash front's moving faster than predicted. You need to decide soon.
Aria stared at the words. Her thumb hovered over the reply box, but she didn't type anything yet.
"They're waiting," Selene said quietly, reading her expression.
"I know."
"You don't want to go with them."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to."
Aria dropped the phone on the sheets, exhaling slowly. "It's not them. I just… I'm not done here."
Selene tilted her head. "Here? As in the hotel? Or something else?"
Aria sat up, legs over the edge of the bed, grounding herself in the coolness of the floor. "There's something in me. I feel it every time I'm near a mirror. Every time I close my eyes and see that field again."
Selene stayed where she was, listening.
"I think it's waking up," Aria continued. "And I think if I run now — if I go underground or hide or pretend this is all someone else's problem — I'll lose the part of me that's trying to wake up."
Selene watched her for a long moment. Then nodded. "You're right."
"About what?"
"There's something inside you," she said. "It's not new. It's not an infection or a curse. It's a part of you that never got the chance to finish becoming."
"Then what is it?"
Selene rose slowly and crossed to her, barefoot, silent. "It's the place that doesn't rot. The part the world couldn't corrupt. It's trying to grow through you."
Aria blinked. "Like… a memory?"
"No. Like a home."
Her breath caught. "You mean that field?"
Selene nodded. "That's yours. Always has been. You created it without knowing. A place the infection can't reach."
"I thought it was a hallucination."
"It's a dimension layered under this one. Like a parallel vein. But you can't stay in it — not yet. You're still too weak to open it fully."
Aria rubbed her arms, chilled despite the warmth of the room. "Why me?"
"Because you never gave up. Even after everything."
Aria laughed quietly, bitter. "I gave up on everything."
"Maybe," Selene said. "But not on beauty. Not on hope. Not on people."
"I didn't think that counted for much."
Selene looked at her with something that felt close to awe. "It counts for everything."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward. Just vast.
Aria reached for her phone again. This time she replied:
I'm okay. Not ready to leave yet. I need to see something through.
The "delivered" tag popped up fast. No reply followed. Just space.
Outside the window, the light had turned strange again. Not dark — but washed - out. Pale. Like everything was losing pigment slowly. And from above, soft ash had begun to fall again, dancing gently on the glass. Not thick. Not urgent. Just present.
Selene noticed it too.
"You feel it?" she asked.
Aria nodded. "Yeah."
"It's calling to you. That space. Your space."
"I don't know how to get there," Aria said.
"Not yet. But it's getting closer every time you choose yourself over fear."
Aria turned toward her, brows knitting. "You keep talking like I'm some kind of chosen one."
"You're not chosen," Selene said. "You're becoming. That's more dangerous."
There was something in that sentence that made Aria's chest ache. Becoming meant change. Becoming meant pain. But it also meant power. And in this world, the only ones who seemed to survive were the ones who remembered what they were becoming — not just what they were trying to survive.
Aria crossed the room and stood by the mirror.
Not the cursed one. Just a normal, rectangular piece of cheap hotel glass.
Her reflection looked back.
Paler than she remembered. Eyes a little darker under the weight of too many nights without real rest. But also… more there somehow. Like the version of her that had been drifting for so long was finally settling into its shape.
She raised a hand.
The reflection matched it perfectly.
And for the briefest second, she swore she saw the field again — not behind the glass, but in her own eyes.
The mirror pulsed. Just once. Soft, like breath. And in that blink — she felt it.
Her body started leaning in before she even meant to. Drawn. The glass warmed under her fingertips and —
— a rush of color and scent and light. The field. Paradise. Her paradise.
Wildflowers like stars. Wind that carried memory. A sky like melted gold.
Her feet touched grass. She gasped.
And then it was gone.
Yanked out. Pulled like gravity snapped the tether. She stumbled back from the mirror, breath gone, body shaking like she'd been ripped through dimensions.
Selene caught her before she hit the ground.
"You weren't supposed to go in yet," she said, voice steady but firm.
"I didn't mean to. It just — pulled me."
"I know." Selene helped her upright again. "But it's not time. You're still locked."
"Locked?"
Selene looked at her like she was choosing her words carefully. "Your bloodline. The part of you that belongs there — it hasn't awakened fully. It's dormant. Coiled. Waiting for something."
"What?" Aria asked. "What does it need?"
Selene's eyes darkened slightly, not with anger — but hunger. "Heat."
Aria's breath hitched.
Selene let her go gently. "Two sources of heat. Colliding. Consuming. Not just lust. Not just want. Something more primal."
"Like you and me?" Aria asked, voice quiet.
A long pause.
"No," Selene said, but her voice was low. "Not just us. There's another. One that mirrors your fire in a way I can't. Someone who lights the fuse."
Aria's mind jumped. The name came unbidden.
Elara.
The girl with wildfire eyes and too - sharp smiles. The one who made her pulse skip in a different kind of rhythm.
"She's the key," Selene said. "Whether you like it or not. Her heat will wake what's buried."
Aria blinked, startled. "Elara? You mean the global icon? Actress? Half the world's obsessed with her — Elara?"
Selene tilted her head slightly. "I guess she's famous."
Aria stared. "You mean my neighbor's sister?"
Selene's eyebrow arched. "You say that like I'm supposed to know what that means."
"She… lived down the street. Used to hang out at our place when we were kids. We weren't close - close but… she always had this way of showing up like she already knew everything about you."
Selene didn't answer at first. Just studied her for a beat too long. Something flickered behind her eyes — not quite irritation, but something cousin to it.
This version is different, Selene thought to herself. In my memory, Elara was just another heat source. Not… this close. Why does Aria know her like that? Her jaw tensed slightly. Ugh. She doesn't even like Elara. Not like that. She's just— possessive. Too possessive. Always hovering too close to Aria like she's entitled to her. It's annoying.
Selene's gaze narrowed slightly. And then, suddenly, her lips twitched. "Wait," she said slowly, watching Aria's expression shift. "You're blushing."
"No, I'm not."
"You so are." Selene stepped closer. "Do you have a crush on Elara?"
Aria's cheeks flared up to her ears. She opened her mouth, closed it, looked anywhere but at Selene. "I — what? No. I mean. Maybe. Not really. Shut up."
Selene laughed, soft and wicked. "That's not a no."
"Shut up, Selene."
Selene leaned in, eyes dancing. "Aria…"
"Nope."
"Just admit it."
"I'm not —!"
But Selene cut her off with a kiss. A light one. Teasing. The kind that said I know everything and you're cute when you try to lie.
Aria kissed back, almost instinctively. And this one didn't feel teasing at all. It felt real. It felt like the part of her that belonged nowhere finally had a place to land.
When they pulled apart, Selene brushed a thumb over Aria's jaw.
"She might wake your blood," she said. "But I'm the one who's been carrying it this whole time."
Aria's phone buzzed again.
One last text:
We're heading in. Last safe train leaves in 45 minutes. If you're not coming, stay off the main roads. They're watching. Whatever's left of them.
Aria stared at the screen. Then shut it off.
"I'm not going," she said.
Selene didn't ask why.
She just said, "Then we start from here."