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The darkness in my room doesn’t just surround me. It presses in, thick and airless, like it’s trying to bury me alive. I sit there and let it happen. I don’t turn on the light. I don’t move. A few hours ago, my throat was raw from screaming her name, from choking on words that came too fucking late, and now I don’t trust my body to make a sound at all. If I opened my mouth, I think nothing would come out. Or maybe everything would.
My heart won’t slow down. It keeps slamming against my ribs, frantic and uneven, like it’s trying to escape me too. I know they’re out there, on the other side of the door. I can hear the house breathing, floorboards settling, whispered voices that stop every time I shift. They’re waiting. Watching. Afraid I’ll break. Maybe hoping I already have.
But none of them matter. Not right now.
There’s only her.
Eleven. El.
Her name cuts deeper than any knife. I don’t say it out loud because I don’t think I’d survive hearing it in my own voice. The pain that comes with it is immediate and violent, a twisting pressure in my chest that makes it hard to breathe. I want to tear my heart out, feel it beating in my hands, crush it between my fingers until it stops hurting. Until it stops remembering. Until it’s as ruined as she is.
No.
Not ruined.
Sacrificed.
She chose to disappear so the rest of us could stay. She burned herself out of the world so the cycle could end, so the military wouldn’t hunt her down, so we could breathe freely again. And I hate her for it. I hate her for being brave. I hate her for being good. I hate her for leaving me behind with this hollow, rotten thing she called a future.
I don’t remember getting to my room. One moment I was there, holding onto the idea that she might still be alive somewhere, that she’d come back like she always did, and the next I was here, sitting on my bed like a ghost in my own body. I don’t even remember lying down. My limbs feel wrong, heavy and distant, like they don’t belong to me anymore.
I try to picture her face and it slips away. That scares me more than anything else. I grasp at the memory, clawing for details. Her eyes, her nose, the way her mouth tilted when she smiled, but it’s like trying to hold smoke. The harder I try, the faster it disappears.
All I have left is the blanket in my hands.
It still smells like her..faint, warm, familiar. Like soap and skin and something softer I can’t name. I press it to my face and breathe like it might keep me alive. My cheeks are tight and sticky with dried tears. I cried until there was nothing left inside me, until my body gave up, until even grief grew tired of me.
I feel empty.
And at the same time, I feel like I’m drowning.
I would die if it meant seeing her again. If someone told me that all I had to do was stop breathing, stop fighting, and she’d be there waiting for me, I wouldn’t hesitate. Not for a second. I would’ve gone with her. I should’ve gone with her. I should’ve fought harder, screamed louder, grabbed her hand and refused to let go. I should’ve stood between her and the world and let it take me instead.
None of this is worth it without her.
None of it.
Her smile keeps replaying in my head. The one she gave me right before she left, small and soft and brave in that way only her beautiful lips could manage. It’s torture. Every time I see it, something inside me splits open, raw and bleeding. I wanted to tell her I loved her. Not later. Not someday. Right then. I wanted to tuck that stupid strand of hair behind her ear and tell her how beautiful she is, how she makes everything feel less broken just by existing.
I’ve never loved anyone like her. I never will.
She wasn’t just my girlfriend. She was my safe place. My reason. The part of me that believed things could end without someone being lost forever. And now she’s gone, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with all the love I still have for her. It has nowhere to go. It just rots inside me.
She was it for me.
She was my baby.
My home.
And now she’s gone.
I don’t know how long it’ll take before the rest of me follows.
Gone. Gone. Gone. Fucking gone.
I shiver, even though my skin is slick with heat, the room radiating off me like fire that doesn’t warm. I close my eyes and she’s there. Always there. Her face. Her eyes. That adorable smile when she looks at me that I’ll never see again. She’s everywhere, and I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I can’t stop seeing her.
My chest tightens without warning.
At first, I think it’s just the way I’m sitting, hunched over like something inside me folded in on itself and never unfolded again. But then the air stops working. I breathe in and it doesn’t feel like anything, no relief, no expansion, just pressure, building and building, until my lungs start to burn.
Something’s wrong.
Something is really wrong.
My heartbeat stutters, then takes off, wild and erratic, like it’s trying to outrun the rest of me. My hands start shaking. I stare at them in the dark, barely recognizing them as mine. They look too pale. Too far away. Like I’m watching someone else fall apart through a foggy window.
I drag in a breath and it comes out broken.
Again.
Again.
Each inhale feels shallow, useless. My vision blurs at the edges, the room shrinking, walls inching closer until I’m not sure there’s enough space left for me to exist in. I press my palm hard against my chest, like I can physically hold my heart still, like I can force it to behave if I just push hard enough.
Stop. Stop. Stop.
It doesn’t listen.
My head feels wrong, light and heavy at the same time. Thoughts slip away halfway through forming, replaced again by flashes instead. Her face. Her voice. Her hand slipping from mine. My stomach twists violently and I have to lean forward, gasping, convinced I’m going to throw up or pass out or both.
For a terrifying second, I think this might be it.
That my body is finally giving up too.
And part of me doesn’t fight the idea.
That thought lands softly, almost gently, and it scares me more than the panic itself. There’s a quiet, traitorous voice in the back of my mind whispering that it would be easier. That if my heart just stopped right now, I wouldn’t have to wake up tomorrow in a world where she doesn’t exist.
The thought doesn’t feel dramatic.
It feels logical.
I press my forehead into the mattress, breathing into the fabric like someone drowning in inches of water. My hands dig into the blanket, nails biting into my palms, grounding me just enough to remind me that I’m still here. That my body is still here, even if my mind keeps slipping away from it.
Time stops making sense.
Seconds stretch into something unbearable, or maybe hours pass, at this point I honestly can’t tell. My body goes numb in waves, starting at my fingertips, crawling up my arms, like I’m slowly being erased from the outside in. I don’t feel real. The room doesn’t feel real. It’s like I’m floating somewhere above myself, watching this version of me curl inward and shake.
I think about hurting myself, not in images, not in plans, but in impulses. There is a sharp need to feel something different. Something louder than this hollow ache. Something that proves I still exist in a way my pain hasn’t swallowed yet.
The thought disgusts me.
The thought tempts me.
I squeeze my eyes shut and rock slightly, grounding, grounding, grounding, the way mom once told me to do when the world gets too big. My teeth chatter even though I’m not cold. My muscles ache like I’ve been running for miles, even though I haven’t moved at all.
Eventually, the panic burns itself out.
Not because it resolves, just because my body can’t sustain it anymore.
I’m left exhausted, hollowed out, damp with sweat, my heart still beating too fast but no longer trying to escape my chest. I lie there staring into nothing, dissociated and empty, like a shell that’s already been abandoned.
And the worst part is this:
Even after all of that, after the terror and the shaking and the part of me that wanted to disappear?
She’s still gone.
The pain is still there, settled deep in my bones. Unmovable. Waiting for me to wake up tomorrow. And the day after that. And every day for the rest of my life.
I turn my face into the blanket again, breathing in what little remains of her, and let the darkness take me back once more.