Page 10 of Sage Haven

It presses down on your chest until every breath is a fight.

It creeps into your veins, a cold coil of despair that winds itself around your heart and waits—just waits—for the right moment to squeeze.

Since the day I left Sanele behind, I woke each morning drenched in cold sweat. My body jolting upright before I was even conscious of being awake, lungs heaving, as my breaths forced their way through my body.

My stomach twisted in knots I couldn’t undo.

And my mind—my mind was a nest of nightmares.

Except they weren’t just nightmares.

They were memories that followed me.

Invading every sleeping and waking moment, crawling under my skin, like something alive and starving wanting to eat me from the inside out.

Reminding me that the past isn’t a place you can leave.

It’s not a door you can lock.

It’s a scar and one that deepens with time.

I wanted to believe a fresh start was possible.

That time and distance could bury the past, could quiet the screaming.

But every time I looked in the mirror, I saw a stranger staring back.

A face I didn’t recognize.

A version of me that didn’t fit the story I was trying to tell myself.

I wanted time to heal me.

I needed it to.

But no matter how far I ran, I was still running from myself.

Every day felt like a constant balancing act.

I pieced myself together with shaking hands, careful not to breathe too hard in case everything collapsed.

I told myself that no one could see the cracks if I smiled just right and spoke just enough.

Maybe no one would notice.

Because I knew that with one slip, one misstep, one moment of weakness—I’d fall.

Straight back into the ruins of my past and I wasn’t sure I had it in me to crawl out again.

So, I kept my head down.

I kept busy.

I pretended.

Routine became my armor.

If I moved enough, worked enough, maybe I could stay ahead of it. Maybe I could even fool myself into thinking I wasn’t unraveling.