I'll Hold You While You Rot

Breaking free from addiction, Devereaux finds the real horror is what won’t let go.

I wake to the sound of breathing.

Shallow. Unsteady. A soft, raspy drag of air that teeters on the edge of life and something else entirely. For a moment, I don't recognize it. I wait for it to stop.

But it doesn't.

It takes a moment to realize it's coming from me

There's a tightness in my chest, and my body spasms like something inside me is shifting, or trying to reject something it should've never taken in.

I realize I'm hungover, but I feel something else.....I feel consumed.

My tongue feels like sandpaper, pressed to the roof of my mouth, dry as bone. But the first thing that hit me was the taste--sickly sweet, bitter, and rancid, like I'd eaten rotten grapefruit and chased it with saccharine. My head throbbed, slow and steady, a reminder that I'd done something stupid.

Pain pulses behind my eyes, every throb like a nail being hammered into my skull. I blink hard against the light slicing through the blinds, each ray sharpening the headache behind my temples.

I knew I wasn't home before I even looked around. The pillow under my cheek was too flat. Too hot. Damp. It reeks of weed, cheap cologne, and saliva. The air tastes used.

My vision sharpens in jagged intervals, but the shadows seem to shroud my vision with intent. The ceiling above me was cracked, the fan stuttering with every turn like it might tear free and bring the plaster down with it.

I shift, wincing as stiffness crackles through my joints. My jeans and underwear are tangled on the floor like shed skin. My top is hiked up to my armpits, bra twisted and half-off--like someone couldn't be bothered with finesse and just shoved things out of the way to get to what they wanted.

As I orient myself, a murky shadow catches my eye as it hangs in the far corner of the room. I can feel its sentience in my periphery. I didn't turn toward it. I didn't have to. Its presence pressed against my awareness like a thumb on a bruise.

And somehow, I knew it had been there all night.

My pulse stutters--hard--and I force myself upright, swallowing back the bile rising like a tide. My hands shake as I tug my shirt and bra into place.

I push the pilling blanket off me and swing my feet off the side of the bed. Planting them firmly on the floor.

A crumpled pair of men's jeans sits a few feet away.
Next to them, a condom wrapper--torn down the side. Empty.

The sight knocks something loose in my gut.

Jovan.

My personal workplace parasite

The one who acts like "boundaries" is a four-letter word. The one who hovered at my desk with a smirk like he owned the place--or worse, like he owned me. The one who once told me I had "OnlyFans potential" with a wink, then watched my reaction like it was foreplay.

I stare at the wrapper again, bile pushing back up.

A low sound slips from my throat. Not quite a groan. Not quite a sob.

Just a raw, involuntary noise.

"Ughhh..."

And then the memories start coming--Just flashes. Like someone's flipping through Polaroids in the dark.

We started at Luca's. Me, Rica, and Jess. The usual crowd. Then Jovan and Daniel showed up, bringing trouble with them.

We took shots. Too many to count.

Next thing I know, I'm pressed between Jovan and Daniel, kissing both of them like a desperate pick-me.

Daniel's phone buzzed--his girlfriend, probably screaming at him for being completely blitzed on a Tuesday.
Jovan leaned close, and said something about a "post-layoff hookup."
And I... I let it happen.

I drive the heel of my hand into my eyes. Hard.
As if I can force the memory back into the dark, far corners of my mind, where all the other shame lives.

"What the fuck is wrong with me?" I mutter. Not with fire. Just defeat.
The kind of question you ask when you already know the answer and hate it.

I rise too quickly. The room tips sideways, dragging my stomach with it. I catch myself on the bedframe, breathing through the spin. Everything feels heavier this morning. My skin. My guilt. The space between each breath.

I glance around the room and start collecting the pieces of myself--my jeans, shoes, dignity. Everything's strewn across the floor like evidence left behind at a crime scene. I pull my pants on with stiff, quiet movements, like I'm trying not to disturb the version of myself that let this happen.

My purse is under the bed, half unzipped, and my phone wasn't in there. I found it in Jovan's jeans, which made my skin crawl. I stuffed it into my bag and kept moving.

The bathroom door is cracked. I ease it open with one hand, and before I see anything else, I catch my reflection in the mirror.

I freeze.

For a breath, I don't recognize her.

What's staring back at me has my eyes, but their just inky voids. The mouth twisted into a malevolent sneer. Its skin ashen and deathly gray. Like something's been draining it sip by sip.

I snap the light on with too much force. The bulb flickers before catching.

I step closer.

Still me. Hungover. Eyes half-lidded. Makeup smeared. But me. For that, I thank God.

I lower my eyes to the floor--and there he is.

Passed out, naked, curled near the toilet. There's a thin trail of vomit dried on the tile beside him. One hand dangles limply over the edge of the seat.

For a split second, I wonder if he's dead.

I crouch down slowly, checking for breath. His back rises and falls in a shallow rhythm.

Still alive.

I should feel something. Relief, maybe.

But all I feel is filth.

I stand and wipe my hands on my jeans like I've touched something dirty. I don't look back.

I just leave.

The sunlight hits me like a punishment.

Hot. Blinding. Unforgiving.
It cuts through my hangover like a scalpel, slicing behind my eyes and down the back of my throat, where the bitter taste of last night still clings like rot.

I squint into it, head pounding, legs trembling beneath the weight of my own body. Every step feels like penance. Every breath, a struggle against the panic fluttering just beneath my skin.

I wish I could say this was new. A one-time spiral. A fluke.
But the truth is, I've been circling this drain for a long time.

Alcohol was never supposed to be my companion. I didn't even drink until five years ago. I was the responsible one. The one who drove people home. The one who cleaned up the mess.

But then came the invitation--just one drink, just one night after a brutal shift. Just something to take the edge off.

And for a while, it worked.
The drinks helped me laugh again. Forget.
Until forgetting became survival. And survival became a ritual.

Now the edge is always there. Jagged and hungry. The drinks don't soften it anymore--they just silence the screaming long enough for me to pass out and repeat the exhausting cycle over and over again.

But the worst part isn't the sickness.
It's the knowing.

Knowing that I'll keep crawling back to it. Because even now, something inside me hisses:

Drink.
You're shaking already.
What are you without me? Forgotten. Disposable.
Let me in. I'll quiet the noise. I'll hold you while you rot.
You need me.
You'll die without me.

That voice used to sound like mine. Now it doesn't.

I wish I could say last night wasn't the exception. I went harder than usual, sure, but not by much. Not enough to explain the things I can't remember. The gaps that feel less like forgetfulness and more like possession.

I lost my job yesterday. Five years of swallowing humiliation and abuse in that glossy, manicured hellscape, only to be tossed out with a dozen others. Not for poor performance, but to cover for a manager too incompetent to protect his own team.

He got to stay.

Because apparently he's worth more than all of us combined.

And me?

I'm worth a night with Jovan.
I'm worth an empty bottle and missing memories.
I'm worth the regret sticking to the inside of my ribs like tar.

The sun presses harder against my skin as I walk, as if it knows what I've done. What I've become.

An unemployed, desperate alcoholic who spread her legs for the office lowlife--and now he'll carry that story in his mouth like a trophy, retelling it to anyone who'll listen.

The thought propels me forward, as if to outrun the dread and shame.

Jovan's apartment is only a mile away from mine, so I walk. It's not until I'm halfway home that I pull out my phone and see the chaos I caused.

52 missed calls.
34 texts and 26 voicemails. Mostly from my sister.

"Dev, where are you?"

"Please answer, I'm worried."

"I'm freaking out, please pick up!"

A message from my coworker Katie:

"Heard what happened. Josh sucks ass, can't believe he's still here and you aren't. Hit me up when you get this. I just wanna know that you're okay, alright?"

And then the messages I sent. Sloppy drunk texts to my exes.

One ex got a proposition for a threesome. He declined, and his no earned him a "You're a walking STD with daddy issues anyway."

My most recent ex, got one declaring that I still loved him, and that we should fix things.

And the last one got a damning profanity filled paragraph, about how much I hated him and wished he were dead, along with his mother and grandmother.

He didn't respond. I'm probably blocked.

I stopped walking. Press my back to a brick wall for support. The shame rises. Thick. Acidic. It clogs my throat. Making it too difficult to swallow.

I can't keep doing this. I don't even have this type of hate in my heart. I would never wish anyone dead under normal circumstances.

The breakdown came fast. I slide down the wall and let the tears come. People walk past. No one stops. No one even slows.

And I don't care.
Not anymore.

The shame--whatever scraps were left--got hollowed out of me in Jovan's bed.
What didn't die there was burned away by the daylight, seared off my skin under the sun's cruel, unflinching spotlight.
There's nothing left to hide behind.

A few seconds pass before I realize I'm still sitting on the sidewalk, breathing like I've been running.

I pull myself together--barely.

Stand.
Breathe.
Wipe the tears I didn't realize were falling.

Then I call my sister.

She answers before the second ring.

"Dev?! Oh my God--"

"Yeah," I say, voice hoarse. "It's me. I'm okay. I'm... I'm on my way home."

Silence crackles on the line.

Then--sobbing. Raw. Uncontained.

"I thought you were gone," she chokes. "I thought you'd done something... reckless. I didn't know what to do."

"I know, Paige. I know. I'm sorry."
My throat tightens.
"I'll be home soon. We can talk. I think... I think I'm finally ready to listen."

She doesn't speak again. But she stays on the line until I hang up.

The walk home stretches out in front of me, too bright and too long.

And with every step, I try to piece together a plan. Something real.
Because whatever this thing is, whatever it's turned me into--

I know one thing for sure:

I won't survive another night like that.

I hesitate at the door, keys in hand, heart stuttering.

I told Paige I was ready to talk, that I'd listen--but I'm not sure I know what those words mean. Talking, meant peeling things open. Listening, meant facing what I'd spent years trying to bury under liquor and excuses.

It meant admitting there was a problem.
One, I was ashamed of.
One that owned me.

I'd lied for so long I started believing it. Told myself I wasn't that bad. That I only drank at night, at home. Never on the job. And I'd never gotten behind the wheel drunk--well, only hungover, which didn't count.

I was a responsible drunk.
Disciplined.

Functioning.
In control.

The truth is, I've powered through alcohol poisoning more times than I can count. Hid behind boyfriends who were too deep in their own dependencies to call mine out. Which is why every relationship curdles like spoiled milk--thick with resentment and silent blame.

And Paige... she always saw more than I wanted her to.

I slip the key in the lock and push the door open.

She's already waiting in the living room, arms open before I've even stepped inside. Her eyes are swollen, nose is red. She rushes me without hesitation, wrapping me in a hug so tight, it feels like she's holding me together.

"I was so worried," she whispers.

I don't respond. I don't have to.

We sit on the couch, the silence stretching long and heavy between us. When she speaks, her voice is soft. Careful. Like she's handling something fragile.

"You remember the writing contest you won in fifth grade? The one you didn't even tell Mom about because you thought she'd think it was stupid?" She smiles through the tears. "You were brilliant. You still are."

I look away.

"You used to make up whole worlds with just a pencil. You were so full of ideas, Dev. You used to paint, write, design--anything. And then that job... and the drinking... it just swallowed you whole."

I press my hands into my lap, my fingers digging into my thighs to keep steady. Her words burn--because they're true. And somewhere beneath the numbness, I feel the flicker of something I thought I lost.

"Sometimes," she continues, "it feels like you're still here, but something else is living in your skin."

I glance at her, and the expression on her face tightens.

"There were nights I was scared to come out of my room. You'd be whispering... not to anyone. Not in English. It sounded like another language. And the shadows under your door--"

She stops, eyes wide. "It looked like more than one person was in there. Pacing. Moving around."

I swallow hard.

"There were times," she says, almost too softly, "your voice would get so deep, I thought there was a man in the room with you. But I'd checked, and there was never anyone else in there."

The blood drains from my face.

She touches my hand gently. "I know it sounds crazy. But I know it wasn't you. And I've been scared for a long time."

Her words settle over me like a second skin. Cold. Tight.

I thought I'd hidden it all so well.
But something had been leaking out.
Something other.

And suddenly, I understand: it wasn't just the alcohol poisoning me.
It was what came with it.
What waited inside it.

I grip Paige's hand and nod.

"I'm getting sober, I mean it this time Paige, I'm done."

"I believe you Dev," her voice trembled. She swiped at the tears tracking down her cheeks, trying to steady herself. "Whatever you need... I'm here."

The words cracked something in me. Not because I didn't expect them, but because I didn't believe I deserved them.

"I love you," I murmured, voice low. "And I'm sorry."
I pulled her into my arms before I could fall apart completely.

We held each other, both needing the stability and comfort. When we finally broke apart, the fatigue settled in quickly, heavy in our bones. The kind of exhaustion that has nothing to do with sleep.

Paige called out of work and slipped into her bedroom.

I headed straight for the shower.

The stench of sex, sweat, and liquor rolled off my skin in waves, thick and sour. It wasn't just a smell. It was a presence.

Nothing but scalding water and rough scrubbing would strip it away.
And even then, I wasn't sure it would be enough to make me feel like myself again.

The steam rose thick and heavy, curling around me like smoke from an unseen fire.

I stood under the scalding water, letting it punish my shoulders and run down my back in blistering streams. I didn't flinch. I wanted it to hurt. To wash away the filth clinging to my skin, soaked into the creases of my body--the reminders of where I'd been, what I'd let happen.

At first, it felt like any other hangover.
Shaky hands.
A sour stomach.
A headache pulsing behind my eyes like a second heartbeat.

But then something shifted.

The steam grew dense, almost choking. My breath shortened. Not from the heat, but from something deeper. Something rising.

My heart kicked up fast. Not anxious--panicked. Not pounding--thrashing, like something was trapped in my chest and looking for a way out.

I pressed a hand to my chest.

"Calm down," I whispered to no one. "You're okay."

But I wasn't. Not really.

My fingers tingled. My knees buckled slightly, forcing me to steady myself against the tile wall. The water had turned too hot, but I couldn't make myself reach for the knob.

Because deep down, I didn't want comfort.
I wanted punishment.
Or maybe the substance inside me did.

My stomach lurched once, then again.

I dropped to my knees just in time.

There was nothing graceful about it. I vomited hard and violent. It splattered against the drain and stained the water pink. The sound echoed too loudly in the small bathroom, mixed with the hissing of the showerhead.

When it passed, I stayed there. Kneeling. Soaked. Shivering despite the heat.

There was a buzzing in my ears. A static hum, like the water wasn't hitting me--it was watching me.

I showered with the lights off, the only light bleeding in was from the small window above the towel rack.

I looked up, eyes bleary, heart thudding like a bass drum. And for a second, I thought I saw movement. A dark shape shifting beyond the shower door.

But when I turned, nothing was there.
Just tile. Steam. The sound of my own labored breath.

I closed my eyes, pressing my forehead to the wall. Thoughts began to crawl through my mind--judgments, cruel and familiar, but not my own.

"Look at you. Weak already."

"You think you can do this without me?"

"You'll rip yourself apart before the day's done."

"Go ahead. Shake. Gag. Crawl. I'll still be here--waiting to put you back together."

"You're mine, Devereaux."

The voice came from within. It coiled around my ribs like a serpent and pressed its mouth to my ear from inside my skull.

I gritted my teeth. Hard. Until my jaw ached.

"No," I whispered. "I'm not."

There was no response.

The silence that followed was worse than the voice. It was the sound of something taking root. Of something certain it had already won.

But the day passed.
And somehow, I didn't fall apart.

For the first time in what felt like forever, the weight lifted just enough to let in something softer.

Paige made steak tacos and homemade chips and salsa. We ate in front of the TV like we used to. Nothing fancy, but it hit exactly where I needed it.

We laughed. The real kind. Not forced. Not tight-lipped. From the belly. From the places that used to hold joy before alcohol drowned them.

For a while, I let myself believe this could be what healing looked like. That maybe I wasn't too far gone. That maybe I still had a future.

"This was so fun," Paige said as she stood, stretching with a yawn. "I've got some assignments to finish, but maybe we can make this a weekly thing?"

There was a spark in her voice--hopeful, like she was daring to believe we could be okay again.

"Of course," I said, sinking deeper into the cushions. "We've got all the time in the world."

And I meant it.
I really did.

From there, time slipped. Eventually, the sun dipped low, and the apartment dimmed degree by degree until the only light came from the glow of the flat screen

I stood to close the blinds. The window overlooked the balcony, and I reached for the cord, mind drifting.

That's when I saw it.
Not outside.
In the reflection.

Movement.

Behind me.

I froze. My breath caught in my throat.

Something--just over my shoulder--shifted in the far corner of the room. Barely there. But enough to send a sharp chill down my spine.

I turned fast.

Nothing.

I hesitated, then turned back to the window.

And screamed.

There it was. Hanging from the ceiling. Upside down. Just behind me.

A creature--long-limbed, slick and ashen, its jaw yawning open into a grin that looked starved. It didn't move. Just watched, its head tilted, like it was listening for something inside me.

I stumbled back, crashing into a shelf, and books tumbled to the floor.

"Dev?!" Paige's voice sliced through the moment.

Light burst across the room.

Gone.

Whatever it was, it was gone.

Paige ran in, wide-eyed. "What the hell....are you okay?!"

My mouth opened, but the truth didn't come out.

"I--I saw a mouse," I said. "It ran under the couch. Scared the hell out of me."

She grimaced.

"Ugh. Gross. We can let Rocky stay out here tonight, I'm sure he'll be thrilled to hunt it down."

"Yeah, it won't stand a chance against him," I add with quiet reflection.

Paige shrugs and giggles with a small snort, "You sure you're okay? You still seem a bit shaken up?"

"I'm okay," I said, forcing a smile that didn't quite reach my eyes. "Just need some sleep."

She nodded, though her brows stayed knit. "Alright. Just yell if you need anything."

"Thanks, P."

She padded back down the hall, calling softly for Rocky, her voice fading into her bedroom.

I stayed where I was, staring at the window like it might shift again. My heart hadn't slowed. My hands still trembled. The room looked the same as before--but it all felt wrong. Skinned. Like something had peeled back the surface of my life and let the innards show through.

Eventually, I turned off the lights and made my way to my bedroom, stepping lightly, as if the air itself might crack.

The moment I walked in, a chill wrapped around me. Not cold--unnatural. Like something vile had passed through the room just before I entered and left its scent behind.

I slipped into bed, pulled the covers over me like armor, but there was no comfort in the weight. I turned onto my side, facing the wall, clutching the pillow like it could anchor me.

But the silence was heavy, and the shadows seemed cognizant tonight.

Every creak in the walls made my skin prickle. Every gust of wind against the window made me flinch.

And beneath the hush of the room, I could feel it--that presence.
Still here.
Still watching.

My stomach twisted. My skin felt too tight.

I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself to breathe evenly, like maybe if I pretended hard enough, sleep would come.

But behind my closed lids, I could still see its grin.
Still feel the echo of its claws dragging along my spine.

Inevitably, sleep took me, and when it arrived, it felt less like rest and more like surrender.

I woke choking on air and opened my eyes to darkness so complete it felt like velvet pressed against my face. Cold air kissed my bare arms. My cheek was resting on stone--or concrete, maybe. Rough. Damp. The kind of surface that stuck to your skin like it didn't want to let go.

I sat up, slow and stiff. Limbs aching, hands trembling.

This wasn't my room. But the worst part wasn't not knowing where I was. It was that I'd been here before--maybe not in this body, maybe not in this life, but in that way trauma makes everything familiar. Like a scar remembering the blade.

Then I heard it.

Drag... drag... thud.

Something was coming.

Slow.

Confident.

The kind of movement that didn't need to rush because it knew you weren't going anywhere.

I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn't stop shaking. Not just nerves. My entire body convulsed in a fit of tremors, rattling my bones in a strange, electric panic. Sweat soaked my back. My pulse roared in my ears--erratic, with blistering celerity.

Drag... drag...

The sound was closer now.

Breathless, I forced myself to rise--but the moment I did, the darkness shifted.

Then, the sudden scream of a saw blade split the silence wide open.

It revved from somewhere behind me--raw, metallic, sputtering with hunger. And then the thing charged.

It hurtled toward me, a storm of heat, shrieking steel and slapping wet feet. The air stank of sulphur and rotted teeth. I threw myself backward, tripping over my own legs. A huge figure barrels in my direction--then stops.

Hard.

A thunderclap of metal-on-metal cracked the space as it reached the end of its chain. The snap echoed as it jerked back hard enough to shake the ground.

It thrashed just feet from me--limbs twisted. Its mouth stretched ear to ear, full of serrated teeth that didn't quite fit its skull. Skin bubbled and sloughed. It howled through the blade in its hands, rage pouring from its body in spasms.

I crawled backward, bile rising in my throat. It shrieked again, yanking against the chain, the sawblade grinding into the ground, the jagged edge spinning but finding nothing.

It couldn't reach me. But it wanted to.

I tried to scream but choked instead. My body betrayed me. My stomach clenched again and again until I was dry-heaving into the dark. My hands were tingling. My jaw locked. I collapsed onto my side, twitching.

Then I heard them.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Footsteps--small. Light.
Too soft to be threatening.
Too many to be ignored.

I blinked, trying to clear my vision. The world tilted. Shapes moved at the edge of the dark. Little ones. Bare feet, sticky against the smooth concrete.

Kids?

They approached in a slow, uneven rhythm, like dolls with broken limbs. Limbs that twitched instead of moved. Heads cocked too far to the side. Skin gray and waxy, stretched tight over faces that might've once been innocent but now looked... venemous. Their eyes were pits. Mouths twisted into teeth-baring snarls. Their small hands clutched blades, jagged and gleaming.

At first, they just stood there. Watching me.

Then one of them giggled.

The others joined in--high-pitched and stuttered, like a skipping record.

Then came the first stab.

I felt the pressure before I saw it. A blade plunging into the meat of my thigh. Then another. My calf. My ankle.

They stabbed again. And again. And again.

Over and over, laughing louder each time, delighted by the way my body convulsed under their tiny, frenzied hands.

I didn't feel pain. Not really. Just the weight of the knives. The punctures. Like they were carving into a body that no longer belonged to me.

And maybe it didn't.

Maybe I'd already left it behind.

I tried to scream. Nothing came out. My throat had closed. My body wouldn't respond. I dragged myself backward on my elbows, legs useless beneath me. The floor smeared with blood--or shadow. I couldn't tell anymore.

One of them lunged again, driving its knife into the same spot, like it knew the muscle memory now.

Still no pain. Just a sickening pop and a bloom of cold numbness.

I kept crawling. My vision swam. My teeth chattered even though I wasn't cold.

And when I finally looked back--

They weren't chasing me.

They were following.

Slow and predatory.

Their knives dragged behind them, screeching against the floor. Their faces beam with twisted delight.

I dragged myself forward, elbows slipping in the grime. But I didn't stop.

Couldn't.

But the children did.

They stopped moving, and their smiles widened.

And that's when I knew--

Something worse was coming.

The air changed. Thicker. Wet. Like breathing through soaked fabric. The floor vibrated beneath me, a low tremble, like something massive had shifted in the dark.

And then--

I heard it.

Click. Click. Click.

Teeth.

Clicking together in anticipation.

The darkness ahead rippled. Warped. Something stepped forward, out of the shadows.

Tall.

Thin.

Faceless.

Its skin looked like stretched leather pulled too tight over an exhumed corpse. Its limbs were jointed wrong, too many times, folding in places that made no anatomical sense. Its hands--or what passed for them--were long, skeletal, each finger ending in a splintered nail dripping something black.

And around its neck--stitched into its flesh--were mouths.
Too many to count.
All grinning. All whispering at once.

I couldn't make out the words. But I understood them.

They spoke in craving and certainty.

It didn't want to scare me.

It wanted to end me.

The children shrieked with joy behind me, clapping their blood-slick hands, delighted to witness what came next.

I tried to move. I tried to crawl, but my limbs stopped obeying. My head lolled to the side.

It opened its chest.

There was no heart.

Just a black cavity, pulsing like a wound. Inside, something slithered.

And from that depth came a sound I will never unhear--

My voice.

Pleading. Sobbing.
"Stop fighting."

"Just let it in."

"Come back to what you know. Let it cradle you. Let it rock you to sleep

"Be still, Dev. Be still and let it end."

The thing reached for me.

I didn't feel its touch. Just its absence.

Like it was removing pieces of me, cell by cell, soul first.

My jaw clenched. My body locked.

My spine snapped backward, a full arch off the ground.

The children screamed with laughter.

My eyes rolled back. My throat frothed. Every nerve lit up with pain, with heat, with terror.

I convulsed.

Once.

Twice.

And then--

Light.

Not just brightness--warmth. A golden hush that spread through my chest like breath after drowning. The terror evaporated. The noise quieted. Something soft wrapped around me--weightless and pure.

It was peace.
A love so vast it made me weep without tears.
A presence that held me like I was whole again.

It reapt me into ascension.

Upward.
Outward.
Pulled toward something luminous and vast, where there was no pain, no addiction, no past.

I was going home.

"Not yet..."

The voice was calm, it's whisper woven with sorrow and joy.

"It's not your time, Devereaux."

Soft echoes carried my name--each time more sonorous and urgent.

Dev........

Dever......

"Devereaux." The voice is paternal and warm.

The light around me shifted, turned stark.
Then cold.
Then blinding.

And just like that--

I fall.

Fast and violent. Like a heavy stone dropped from an impossible height.

The peace was ripped away, replaced with sound and urgency--layered voices overlapping like static.

Hands pressed my chest. Wires clung to my skin. My nose filled with the sharp stink of ammonia, blood and sweat.

My eyes opened slowly, and everything sharpened in fragments.

"She's coming back," the soft voice said.

"Thank God... she's back."

Paramedics.

A gurney.

Paige.

She was at the foot of my bed, sobbing so hard her whole body shook. Her mouth moved again and again--my name pouring from it like a prayer--but I couldn't hear her past the ringing in my skull.

My body jolted as they secured me to the stretcher. My tongue was thick and raw, blood and saliva choking my throat. My jaw throbbed. My limbs ached. My heart slammed against my ribs like it was angry to be beating again.

But it was.
It was beating.

I was alive.

Hours later, the hospital room hummed with quiet machines. Sterile air. Dimmed lights.

I was propped up in bed, IV in one arm, monitor clipped to my finger. Paige sat next to me, eyes red and raw. Her voice was low as she recounted the events of the night.

"...you were thrashing," she said, barely above a whisper. "Trying to scream for help, but it was like... like something was choking you from the inside."

She paused, swallowed hard.

"I kept shaking you, over and over, but you wouldn't--couldn't--wake up."

Her voice cracked. She looked away, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

"I was on the phone with 911 when it happened. Your body--Dev, you levitated."
She met my eyes again, glassy and full of fear.

"You were just... lifted off the bed, like something had you. And when you slammed back down, that's when the convulsions started."

A tear slipped down her cheek.

"I don't know what you saw in there, but it wasn't a dream. I felt it. In the room with us. Whatever it was--it wanted to keep you."

I stared at her, every word sinking into the ache still buried in my bones.
I didn't need to say it.
I still felt it too.

The echo of that thing's mouth.
The sound of my own voice--pleading--from inside its body.

I want to comfort her and validate what she's saying, but a soft knock drew our attention toward the door.

A middle-aged doctor stepped in. Gentle face. Kind eyes. Her voice was warm but firm.

"Ms. Mercier, I'm Dr. Abigail Kasebe. I'm glad you're awake."

I nodded weakly.

She offered a warm smile as she stepped forward, briefly resting a hand on Paige's shoulder--a gentle, grounding squeeze--before exhaling an expressive, quiet breath.

"You're very lucky Ms. Mercier. What you experienced was a grand mal seizure, most likely brought on by something we refer to as Delirium Tremens--a dangerous form of alcohol withdrawal. It can cause agitation, hallucinations, tremors, even cardiac arrest. In your case..." She hesitated, then continued carefully. "You flatlined. For nearly a minute."

Paige let out a soft sob beside me.

"First, I wanna say, you made a courageous decision, choosing to get sober," she said. "However, most people don't know that quitting cold turkey, especially after prolonged use, is dangerous. Alcohol is one of the only substances for which withdrawal can kill you. But you're here now, and you're safe."

She offered a small, reassuring smile.

"We're keeping you admitted while you detox under supervision. Once stabilized, we'll get you into a recovery program. You're not alone in this. This journey will by no means be easy, but we're here to help and from the looks of it, you have at least one really strong warrior to help you in this fight."

She gives Paige a subtle nod.

I mouth a silent "Thank You" to the doctor. My throat was too raw to speak.

When Dr. Kasebe left, Paige squeezed my hand.

"I took the rest of the week off. I'm gonna go grab some essentials for us and then I'm coming right back. Okay?"

I nodded, eyes stinging.

She turned to leave, but I couldn't let her go yet.

"Paige?"

She turned on her heel swiftly. "Yeah, sis?!"

"Thank you. If it wasn't for you, I......."

"Don't you dare thank me, you didn't ask for or deserve any of this."

She leaned in and hugged me tight. And in that moment, I felt valued and worthy for the first time in a long time.

As Paige stepped out of the room and the door clicked shut behind her, I closed my eyes, blowing out a deep breath I didn't realize I was holding. I sink into the pillow behind me, allowing myself to relax just for a moment.

When I open my eyes, my gaze drifts past the beeping monitor and empty chair. Landing on the far corner of the room. Where the light didn't reach.

And there it was.

In the corner, the darkness twisted into form.

Not smiling.

Seething. Enraged.

As if my survival was an insult it would never forgive, and it was biding its time for a second chance.

But I didn't look away.

Instead, I let a smile rise, slow and steady.

Because it knew, and so did I.

That I was ready for this fight, and I was NOT going to lose.