Zoya's POV
My eyes fluttered open, and for a moment, everything was just… wrong. The light was too dim, my vision was blurry, and a pounding ache pulsed through my skull like a drumbeat of confusion. There was a sharp, sterile scent in the air—antiseptic. Cold. Clinical. Not home. Not anywhere safe.
I tried to breathe through the fog in my brain, but even that felt like a chore. Every inhale carried the metallic scent of something lifeless, and every exhale reminded me that I didn't know where the hell I was. The bed beneath me was stiff and unwelcoming. My body felt like it had been tossed through a blender—sore, heavy, bruised in ways I couldn't name.
I shifted, groaning, and my fingers grazed the side of the bed—cool metal, unyielding. That touch grounded me, but it also terrified me. I reached for memory, for something to make this all make sense. I got flashes instead: wind, a crash, screaming—then nothing. Just a black void.
And then I saw him.
A shadow in the corner. Still. Watching. He didn't move. He didn't speak. But something about him screamed danger—and worse, familiarity. My breath caught in my throat as I squinted into the gloom, trying to make out his face. Nothing. Just darkness and smoke.
"Who… who are you?" My voice cracked like old glass. I barely recognized it.
He didn't answer. Not right away. He just lifted a cigarette to his lips, the ember flaring red for a second. The smoke curled around him like it belonged to him. Like it had been waiting too.
And then he spoke. Low. Rough. Chilling.
"Some stories," he said, smoke curling from his mouth, "are best left untold. But yours… yours is far from finished."
My heart skidded in my chest. I gripped the bed tighter, trying to anchor myself against the tide of panic rising in me.
"What do you mean? What's happening to me? Where am I?" My voice was sharper this time, laced with fear I couldn't hide.
He didn't answer. Not directly. He just kept watching me like I was some puzzle piece he already knew how to solve. Like he'd been waiting for me to wake up and panic.
"You think this is an accident?" His tone was almost amused. "No, nothing is an accident, Zoya. Not here. Not in this place."
Here.
That word. That single, quiet word dropped into me like a stone in water. I tried to stand—God, I tried—but my legs betrayed me. I staggered, gripping the frame of the bed like a lifeline.
The walls around me, too white and too empty, suddenly felt like they were pressing in. There were no windows. No clocks. Just buzzing fluorescent lights overhead and a low, mechanical hum somewhere behind the wall. My skin crawled. It was the kind of silence that didn't just lack sound—it lacked life.
He just kept talking, calm as hell. "You won't find all the answers yet. But you will, eventually."
The worst part? He wasn't threatening. He wasn't cruel. He was… detached. Like this was routine. Like he'd had this conversation before. Like he was some twisted narrator in a story I hadn't agreed to be in.
"Who are you?" I asked again. Louder this time. "What do you want from me?"
His chuckle was low, barely audible, and it chilled my blood.
He leaned forward, and for a brief second, the light of his cigarette caught the edge of his face—but it wasn't enough. I still couldn't see him clearly. Just enough to know he wanted it that way. He was a shadow given form. Something not entirely real but too vivid to dismiss.
"What happens next is a choice," he murmured. "But some things… will never be the same."
He stood slowly. Every movement deliberate, like he knew it would get under my skin. He walked to the door, smoke trailing after him like some phantom companion. Then he turned to me one last time, and his eyes met mine.
And damn if I didn't feel something cold sink into me.
"Secrets," he said, soft and cryptic, "some secrets are never meant to be found. But others… they will find you, whether you want them to or not."
And then he was gone.
The door clicked shut behind him, and suddenly the silence was suffocating. His words rang in my head like a curse. And the panic I'd been holding back? It hit me like a tsunami.
I screamed. I screamed until my throat burned, until I could feel the walls closing in. This wasn't a hospital. It was a prison with bright lights and no answers. A place where I didn't belong, but couldn't escape.
Footsteps thundered down the hallway, and the door swung open. Two nurses rushed in, cold and clinical in their pristine white. Their faces were unreadable behind those masks—no sympathy, no softness. Just efficiency.
"Miss, please calm down," one of them said, voice flat and measured, already stepping toward me with a syringe.
"No—no, wait!" I begged, but I was no match. The needle jabbed into my arm like a bite.
The panic began to fade—unnaturally fast. My vision blurred again, colors bleeding at the edges. The world dissolved like a watercolor left in the rain.
And just before the darkness reclaimed me, I thought about him. His voice. His eyes. His warning.
He knew me. He knew something about me.
And whatever this place was—whatever they were trying to make me forget—it wasn't over. Not even close.
I don't know how long I was out. Time doesn't really exist here. It just stretches. Warps. When I opened my eyes again, I wasn't screaming anymore. Just floating in a fog of half-formed thoughts and whispers that didn't make sense.
But I knew where I was now.
A mental institution.
A place that wore sanity like a mask while hiding something way darker underneath.
The lights hummed. The walls didn't blink. But I swear—they watched.
And even though everything felt like a dream, one thing was crystal clear: his words had carved themselves into me like a scar.
This place had secrets. And somehow, so did I.
Secrets that weren't buried.
Secrets that were waking up—just like me.