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“Natasha,” the man says. “You can do this.”

I cling to the words like a drowning person desperately flailing toward land, but the tide of oblivion continues to surge, gathering into a monstrous force that defies my attempts to withstand it.

Next thing I know, I’m swallowed whole, ripped away from reality’s comforting shores and hurled into an unfathomable abyss.

7

My heart doesn’t just race, it hammers against my ribcage—a frantic drummer echoing the loss of every cherished memory. Each breath is a battle of frantically dragging air through my lungs, as I desperately try to tether myself to an increasingly distant reality.

“I—I can’t remember…” My voice breaks, a reflection of the chaos unraveling within me. “I can’t remember anything good. It’s only the darkness that’s left.”

“Focus on my voice,” the man says, his words a lifeline thrown across the chasm of my splintering mind. “Let it be your guide.”

His hand finds mine, but as I struggle to concentrate on the cadence of his speech and the assurance of his touch, it’s elusive, futile—like trying to catch a curl of smoke in your fist.

“You’re clinging to your trauma because you’ve woven it into the very fabric of your being,” he says. “You’ve built your whole persona around abandonment, hardship, and betrayal. You’ve repeated these stories so many times, the idea of letting go feels like you’re losing yourself. What you need to remember is that they’re no more than threads that bind you to the past. Your only job now is to sever them.”

It’s true. I know it’s true. And yet—

“I promise you this,” he goes on, “you are so much more than the negative things that happened to you.”

It’s a promise I desperately cling to, while simultaneously holding space for my worst, darkest moments to date.

The day my dad left doesn’t just replay in my head, it reopens that wound, providing details so vivid and sharp I can see the front door close, hear the soft thud of his footsteps receding down the drive, and smell the scent of his cologne lingering in the empty hall.

The day I was sent to jail for a crime I didn’t commit plays out exactly as it was back then—the harsh clang of the cell door, the cold iron grip of fear seizing my heart, the distant echo of voices crying out in anger and despair.

That rat-infested prison where I was assaulted by the duke doesn’t just resurface, it invades all my senses—the cold, slick feel of the shiv in my hand, the revolting clamminess of the duke’s fat, greasy fingers groping my flesh, the satisfying crunch as my foot jams into his knee, the bone snapping with a resounding crack.

Each memory, a specter from the past, tears at my consciousness, threatening to pull me back into the abyss.

Then suddenly, materializing out of the void, rises a terrible, faceless entity that towers above me. The top of its head nearly grazes the ceiling, its impossibly broad shoulders stretching the gap between walls.

At first glance, this strange, menacing figure is such a dead ringer for the duke, I instinctively recoil in fear. My muscles go rigid and tense, my heart pounding so quickly it thunders in my ears.

As this hideous being rears its ugly head, and those dark beady eyes fixate on mine, my jaw drops open and an involuntary, primal scream shreds through the silence.

“You must destroy it,” a voice shouts, and a second later, a sword materializes in my hand.

Instinctively, every lesson, everything I’ve ever been taught about swordcraft,surges through my veins, priming me for the confrontation ahead. With my weapon raised, I face my adversary with unwavering resolve. As he lunges forward with unprecedented ferocity, my first instinct is to cower, hide, and shrink away from the fight. Retreat to my usual place of seeking refuge in self-blame, chastising myself for allowing this to happen again—for purposely putting myself in such a terrible situation.

And yet, deep down, I know the time has come for that fearful side of me to die. The weight of my old identity, a mosaic of darkness and pain, is locked in a battle with the core of my being that yearns to shed the shackles that have so far defined me.

With determined precision, I guide my sword, executing a sweeping arc that cleanly severs the head from the looming spectral form.

I stand rooted in horror as the figure stumbles, falters, then collapses in a heap on the floor, the duke’s head rolling to a stop at my feet with a sickening thud.

But then, in the merest fraction of a second, it morphs into an entirely different entity. The hair on the severed head cascades in long, dark, softly flowing waves that are remarkably like my own. Those dead, piercing green eyes seem to latch onto mine, accusing me of this terrible crime.

A chill grips my heart.My God, what have I done?

My gaze drifts to the body, only to find its clothing—a cropped T-shirt and low-slung jeans, mirroring the outfit I arrived in. As I absorb this ghastly sight, a whispering realization dawns, echoing a truth in the deepest recesses of my mind:the real monster I’ve been battling all along is none other than myself.

Or rather my perception of myself and everything that’s ever happened to me.

The monster I killed isn’t the duke; it’s the fear and anxiety I’ve been carrying. And I know in my heart the real truth: the assault by the duke was never my fault, and feeling bad about that was never a weakness—it was part of my healing.

“Do you understand now?” a voice asks.