Page 25

Twenty-Five

The doors didn’t slam shut behind me.

They exhaled.

A soft, clinical hiss, like the building itself was sighing at the burden of taking me in. The fluorescent lights above buzzed with a flat, endless hum that seemed to crawl inside my skin. Everything smelled like bleach and lemon—sharp, artificial, fake clean. It made my head hurt.

I was handed a blanket. Shoes with no laces. A set of clothes that felt too light in my hands.

Someone led me through a hall of locked doors and whispered reassurances that sounded like warnings. The nurse said it all softly, like she was talking to something already broken.

“Just until you’re feeling better.”

“Just for observation.”

“You’re safe now.”

But I wasn’t listening to her.

Not really.

Because I wasn’t alone.

One behind my left shoulder, pacing—anxious, warm, frantic. The other by my side, still and cold and terrifyingly calm.

“Sunshine,” Sun breathed, his voice laced with panic. “I don’t like this place. This place isn’t safe. You’re not safe.”

“She reached out to them,” Moon said, cool and unreadable. “Let her feel the weight of it.”

“Don’t say that!” Sun snapped. “She was scared. We left her alone too long.”

I kept walking.

My feet didn’t feel like mine. My hands shook. The walls were too white, too padded. Too silent.

My name was asked. My age. My emergency contact. I answered on autopilot. None of it mattered.

Because all I could hear were them.

“They’re going to take you away from us,” Sun said. “They want to fix you—but you’re already perfect.”

“They think we’re a symptom,” Moon whispered. “They’ll learn.”

They brought me to a room that wasn’t a room.

A foam-lined box with no corners.

A bed so low it looked like a punishment. A sink. A toilet bolted to the floor. No door on the bathroom. No privacy.

A nurse handed me a paper cup with two small white pills and a little water.

“This will help,” she said gently.

“Don’t take it,” Moon hissed, near my ear. “You need to stay sharp.”

“What if it silences us?” Sun whispered, voice trembling. “What if we fade?”

I stared at the pills. They sat like little lies in the cup.

My fingers curled tighter.

What if I’m really sick? What if they’re not real? What if this whole time it’s just been me?

“It’s not just you,” Sun said. I didn’t tell him what I was thinking. But he knew anyway.

“This isn't a delusion,” Moon added. “This is consequence. You fed us. You made us whole.”

But I still didn’t know what was true.

I closed my eyes.

Swallowed the pills.

Silence.

For one breath. Two.

I waited for them to go quiet. For my mind to go soft. For the fog to thicken and swallow the voices whole.

But they didn’t go anywhere.

I still felt Sun’s hand hovering above my thigh—scared to touch me, but vibrating with the need to. I still felt Moon at my back, anchoring me with a presence that pressed between my ribs like he belonged there.

“You took their poison,” Moon murmured. “But you can’t erase us.”

“Because you don’t want to,” Sun said softly. “You missed us the second we went quiet.”

My throat tightened.

I sat down on the bed, knees pulled up, blanket clutched in both fists.

The lights buzzed. My heartbeat echoed in my ears. The air felt too big. I couldn’t tell if it was day or night.

“You were made for us,” Moon whispered.

“And we were made for you,” Sun added, his voice a soft whimper of need.

“So sleep, Sunshine. Let them try to fix what they’ll never understand. We’ll keep watch.”

I laid back.

Let the blanket cover me.

Closed my eyes.

The ceiling felt a hundred miles away. My body didn’t feel like it had weight anymore. I was drifting, slowly, softly, into a place that didn’t exist on a map.

A place between sleep and surrender. Between sanity and something warmer.

And in that in-between?—

I heard them breathing.

One fast, one slow. One sunlight and sugar, the other nightfall and frost.

They didn’t leave.

Even now.

Even here.

Even if I was broken?—

I wasn’t alone.