The first thing I noticed when I woke up wasn't sunlight or the sound of birds. It was silence. Not the peaceful kind, but the hollow kind. The kind that presses into your chest like a weight. I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, but something felt wrong. The air tasted different—sterile, empty. Like something had been scraped clean.
I pulled my robe tighter around me and stepped out of bed. The house was unusually still. No humming of machines from Mom's lab, no soft music Vincent usually played in the kitchen. Just an unbearable stillness. I wandered over to my closet, yawning—then froze.
Half of my clothes were gone.
I blinked, then opened the closet fully. My velvet winter coat, the one Vincent had gifted me—missing. The locket my grandmother left me? Gone. My journals, my laptop, even the USB with my research files—all disappeared. I frantically opened drawers, tossed aside hangers, overturned boxes. I couldn't breathe. A sudden nausea rose in my throat.
"Vincent?" My voice cracked in the silence. No reply.
I stormed out of my room, footsteps echoing through the hall. The guest room? Empty. The closet where we stored our travel bags? Wide open. His sneakers—the ones he always kicked under the stairs—gone.
Then I saw it: my mother's lab. Usually locked tighter than a vault. Now, the door stood ajar.
I approached, dread crawling up my spine. The cold fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Glass crunched beneath my feet as I stepped in.
"Mom?"
The metallic scent of blood hit me before I saw her.
She was slumped over the lab table, her body limp, a crimson stain blooming across her coat. A scalpel was embedded deep in her abdomen. Her eyes—once so sharp, so focused—were wide open. Vacant.
My knees buckled. I crawled to her, choking back a scream. "No... please... no..."
I reached for her hand. It was cold.
Something broke inside me.
"Mom... please... wake up... please don't do this..."
A sob tore from my chest, raw and feral. I clung to her, blood soaking into my robe. My world spun. This couldn't be real. This had to be a nightmare.
Then came the boots.
A dozen officers stormed the lab, shouting over one another.
"Target located!"
"Hands where we can see them!"
I couldn't move. I didn't even register the cold barrel of a gun at my back until rough hands yanked me to my feet.
"You're under arrest for the murder of Dr. Celeste Ardeen."
"What?" My voice cracked. "No—no, I just found her! She—she was already like this!"
"There's a confession on your tablet. Your fingerprints are on the scalpel. The evidence is overwhelming."
Confession? I never wrote anything.
"Please, I didn't—I would never—Vincent! Vincent knows! Ask him!"
They dragged me down the stairs. Through the front door. Past the rose bushes I helped Mom plant last spring.
And then I saw him.
Vincent stood by a black car, arms folded, my luggage beside him.
"Vincent!" I screamed. "Tell them the truth! You know I didn't do this! Please!"
He met my eyes.
For a moment, I thought I saw something. Regret? Shame? But it disappeared just as fast.
He turned his back.
And got into the car.
He never looked back.
The station was worse.
They took everything from me—my clothes, my dignity, my voice. I stood beneath harsh fluorescent lights in a room that smelled of bleach and sweat. They took my mugshot, my fingerprints, even a DNA swab. My arms were sore from where they'd cuffed me too tight.
They questioned me for hours. At first, it was civilized.
"Why did you kill your mother?"
"Were you angry with her?"
"Was this planned?"
I cried. I begged. I answered until my throat went dry.
"I didn't kill her! I loved her! I don't know what's happening!"
Their patience wore thin.
They tied me to a metal chair. Slammed my head against the table. Called me names I can't repeat.
"She raised you. You gutted her like an animal."
"No," I sobbed. "No, I didn't—"
One of them turned off the cameras. Another tossed a folder onto the table. Photos spilled out—my mother's lifeless body in different angles. The blood. The scalpel. The look in her eyes.
"Look at what you did."
They deprived me of sleep. Denied me food. My lips cracked. My vision blurred. The air was always cold, but they never gave me a blanket. Sometimes I shook so violently, I thought my bones would break.
They mocked my screams.
"She's finally crying now?"
"I've seen addicts hold it together better."
I tried to remember warmth. My mother's hand on my cheek. Vincent's smile. Our morning coffee. But even those memories began to rot. It felt like they were carving me apart—piece by piece.
....
The cell they threw me in was no bigger than a closet. Concrete walls, iron bars, a stained mattress. A single bulb buzzed overhead like a taunt.
I curled in the corner, knees tucked to my chest. My hair was tangled. My nails cracked. My robe was stiff with blood I wasn't sure was mine.
Sometimes I whispered my mother's name just to hear a voice.
Sometimes I screamed until my throat bled.
I stopped eating. I couldn't stomach the food. My stomach felt like a pit. My hands trembled. My skin turned pale. My body ached constantly. But the worst pain was inside. I felt hollow. Like my soul had been scooped out and thrown into a pit.
At night, the cell grew colder. My breath came out in clouds. I dreamed of Vincent's face. Not the one that loved me, but the one that watched me be dragged away.
Lifeless.
Uncaring.
He didn't defend me.
He framed me.
And I never saw it coming.
I whispered into the dark, "Why?"
But the walls gave no answer.
Whatever hope I had left, whatever dreams I'd carried, whatever love I once knew—it all died in that room.
All that remained was me.
And I wasn't sure I even counted as human anymore. Just a shell. A thing to be punished.
Because in their eyes, I was the monster.
And in mine, I was nothing.