"Finally, you did it."
The words rolled across his skull
like thunder over a scorched wasteland—
loud, endless, hollow.
They tore through every corner of his brain,
splitting his mind open from the inside.
He jolted awake.
His body arched,
as if rusty, forgotten strings had yanked him upward.
Sweat drenched his face—
cold, sticky,
like the slime of fear.
His breath came in short, panicked bursts—
like a drowning man
surfacing too late.
The attic.
Again, this attic.
The sunken mattress,
soaked through.
Boxes.
The broken lamp.
The noose curled in the corner—
like memory,
like a sentence,
like a path.
Light filtered through the cracks above—
gray, foreign, cold,
as if death was watching through the ceiling.
He remembered.
His father.
Those hands.
That voice, trembling with ecstatic madness:
"Finally, you did it."
And then—
pain.
Blood.
Semen.
He still felt it.
On his skin.
Inside.
In his throat.
Like mold you couldn't wash off.
Even death hadn't stopped his father.
Even a corpse hadn't been enough.
He clutched his head—
fingernails dug into his skull,
ripping red crescents into his skin.
It didn't help.
Pain couldn't drown horror.
Nothing could.
His body shook,
convulsed,
like an animal gnawing off its own leg
to escape a trap.
His stomach heaved.
He didn't want to vomit food—
he wanted to vomit himself.
He couldn't stay here.
He couldn't.
He couldn't.
He couldn't.
He stood—
unsteady,
broken,
like his bones were made of ash.
He stumbled toward the window,
like a sleepwalker
following the only remaining light.
The round window.
Cursed.
A porthole in a coffin.
He had stared through it hundreds of times.
Pretending
there was a world outside.
Life.
Anything beyond her.
And him.
The glass was fogged.
Layers of dust.
But behind it—rooftops.
Sky.
Ash-gray.
Sky above other homes.
Other lives.
A way out.
He grabbed the frame.
Fingers trembling.
Nails scraped the paint,
ripping it like flesh.
He pulled.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
Nothing.
The window didn't move.
As if it wasn't sealed by time—
but by malice.
By will.
By the house itself.
He pulled harder.
Growled.
Sweat poured down his temples,
his cheeks,
into his mouth.
He started to hit it.
First with his palm.
Then his fist.
Once.
Again.
Again.
The glass trembled,
but didn't break.
His knuckles burst.
Blood smeared the grime.
A crimson handprint—
pointless.
Empty.
He screamed:
> — I don't want this! I don't want to stay here!
— Let me out.
— Let me die, finally.
— I want to feel the fall—
that split-second of flight,
upside down, headfirst…
…and then die.
Leaving behind nothing but the sound of my neck snapping.
His voice broke.
Faded into a whisper.
Then into a sob.
The house said nothing.
The window said nothing.
The glass remained whole.
He staggered backward.
Collapsed onto the floor,
elbows, shoulders, head slamming down.
He breathed like a beast—
cornered, caged,
discarded.
He looked around.
The rope.
Still there.
Sleeping.
Waiting.
Watching.
Not death.
Not salvation.
Nothing.
Just the loop.
The noose.
Like the rope.
Like him.
He remembered the ceiling.
Clawing at it.
Climbing.
Scraping away plaster.
Beneath it—metal.
Bars.
A cage.
He hadn't been in a room.
He'd been in a cell.
He screamed again.
Through blood.
Through bile.
Through terror.
He lunged forward.
He wanted to die.
Again.
Harder.
He grabbed the rope.
Set up the box.
Climbed.
He knew it wouldn't work.
But he needed it.
He jumped.
The box tipped.
His body slammed to the floor.
Skull.
Crack.
Blood.
He died.
Again.
---
And woke again.
---
A breath burst into his lungs
like someone punched the air into him.
Like someone forced him back.
He sat up.
Jerked upright,
like a puppet pulled by a thread.
Like a corpse
denied its rest.
The attic.
Still here.
Still real.
Still endless.
The mattress—reeking, warm, like rotting meat.
The boxes—eternal.
The noose in the corner.
Like a spider.
Like déjà vu.
Light through the slats—
gray, dull, merciless.
He was here again.
Alive again.
Inside again.
He didn't know how long he'd been dead.
A minute?
A day?
A thousand lifetimes?
His body trembled.
Fingers shook.
Nails clawed his face,
gouging his temples.
But pain no longer worked.
Memory returned.
All of it.
It flooded him.
Crashing in waves,
like sewage
filling a collapsing lung.
He remembered everything.
Every detail.
Every death.
Every rape.
Every drop of blood.
His.
His mother's.
His father's.
He remembered cutting himself off—
trying to kill the hunger.
He remembered climbing.
Punching.
Discovering the grid above.
Falling.
Breaking.
Waking.
Again.
Again.
Again.
No doors.
No exits.
No death.
Only return.
He laughed.
Dry.
Cracked.
Empty.
And then—
a flash.
A phrase.
Like a spark in ash.
"He should be upstairs, with your sister."
His mother said it.
Casually.
Flatly.
Like she was talking about the weather.
Sister.
The word echoed in his skull
like a cry dropped into a bottomless well.
He remembered the photo.
By the door.
The man.
And the girl.
Bright eyes.
A small hand gripping his.
He'd never seen her.
Never met her.
But now…
she felt like the only thing
that wasn't defiled.
Twisted.
Broken.
A lighthouse.
A signal.
Something.
He stood.
Weak.
Slow.
Like a puppet with one thread left.
Maybe she knows.
Maybe she remembers.
Maybe she can help me break out of this.
He headed for the hatch.
Down.
Toward the stairs.
But not to the kitchen.
Not to her.
Not to him.
To her.
To the sister.