Page 41 of Discordant Cultivation

“Slower.”

Another controlled release. Another single breath. Vale’s hand controlled his oxygen intake like a valve, forcing his breathing to slow because he simply couldn’t get enough air into his body to hyperventilate.

After what felt like hours but was probably seconds, the panic started to recede. Not because Kieran felt better—because his body had run out of oxygen to fuel the panic.

Vale released the pressure on his throat, but kept his hand there, rubbing little circles with his thumb along Kieran’s Adam’s apple. “Better?”

Kieran couldn’t answer.

“See?” Vale’s voice stayed soft. “Sometimes we need help even when we don’t want it. Sometimes someone has to make us slow down, make us breathe, make us do what’s actually good for us even when we’re fighting it.”

He took Kieran’s hand—the one that had clawed uselessly at his wrist moments ago—and guided him toward the basement door.

Kieran walked. He didn’t fight or argue. He just cried quietly while Vale led him down the stairs, his body too exhausted from oxygen deprivation and panic to resist.

At the bottom, Vale helped him into the chair.

“There,” he murmured. “That’s much better. This is what you wanted all along. You just needed help accepting it.”

And as the darkness swallowed him whole and he prepared to flee his body, some horrible part of Kieran wondered if Vale was right.

1:53 PM.

Kieran stared at the clock above the kitchen sink and felt dread build like pressure behind his eyes. Seven minutes until Vale appeared in the doorway. Seven minutes until that calm, gentle voice said “It’s time, sweetheart” and Kieran’s feet carried him to the basement whether he wanted them to or not.

He’d stopped trying to find his anger. It was gone—buried so deep under exhaustion and confusion that he couldn’t reach it anymore.

But the fear was still there. Sharp and immediate and getting worse every day.

1:54.

His hands trembled against the counter. His breath came shallow and quick.

I need to get out. I need to find a way out. There has to be a way out.

The thought felt desperate, futile. But it was all he had left.

1:55.

He heard footsteps in the hallway. Vale’s steady gait approaching the kitchen.

Panic exploded through Kieran’s nervous system like a bomb going off. His vision sharpened with adrenaline, his heart tried to break through his ribs, every muscle coiled with desperate energy.

No. Not today. Not anymore. I can’t—

His hand shot out, grabbed the rolling pin from the counter beside him. The back door was ten feet away. Glass panel in the center. If he could just break it, just get outside, justrun… It didn’t matter where. Dying out in a cornfield was better than staying here.

Vale’s footsteps got closer.

Now. Do it now.

Kieran sprinted for the door and brought the rolling pin down with every ounce of desperate strength against the glass.

It bounced off the glass like it had hit concrete. No crack. No spiderweb fracture. Not even a scratch.

“What—?” Kieran stared at the unmarked glass, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He raised it again and struck harder.

Bounce.