Chapter 11 –lname—the real one—cut through the darkness like a serrated blade.
"Kaia…?"
It was soft, almost hesitant, like someone testing the edges of a memory, like the voice didn't quite know it had permission to exist. My chest tightened violently, my breath snagging painfully in my throat. My eyes darted across the dimly lit space, searching for the source.
And then I saw her.
Or me.
She sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor, her golden eyes glinting in the faint light, unmoving but entirely alive. Her hair mirrored mine, the same messy strands curling around a pale face, yet there was something monstrous about her. Something that made my skin crawl. The teeth she bared weren't human—they were sharp, predatory. And the aura around her made the shadows bend toward her, as if the darkness itself was drawn to her presence.
I stumbled backward. My feet scraped against the stone. Panic clawed at my ribs.
"No. No, no, no…" I whispered, shaking my head violently. "This… this can't be real."
Her lips curved into a slow, terrifying smile, the kind that promised pain before it arrived.
"There you go again," she said, voice dripping with something familiar but alien. "Always running from everything. I hate you, Kaia."
Her movement was impossibly fluid, graceful like some god weaving through the empty space. She didn't chase; she glided, every step measured, deliberate. My body froze. I wanted to fight, to run, to scream, but I was paralyzed, caught in a web of dread spun from my own mind.
"Who… who are you?" I stammered, voice trembling. "What… what do you want from me?"
"I'm you," she said simply, tilting her head, those glowing eyes boring into my soul. "But you… you are not me."
Her words twisted in my chest. Not me? How could she exist? How could I exist? The room felt like it was breathing, walls pulsing with a slow heartbeat that wasn't mine. I wanted to escape. I ran.
The emptiness swallowed me. I dashed down endless corridors that shouldn't exist, twisting doors that led nowhere, rooms that curved impossibly, folding over themselves like a nightmare written in geometry I didn't understand. She followed, effortlessly, always just at the edge of my vision. Her laughter echoed behind me—my laughter, but darker, sharper, filled with malice and ancient frustration.
"You can't run from yourself," she said softly, almost a whisper, and yet it reached my ears like a hammer. "You've always been running, Kaia. From everything. From me. From what you've done."
My legs burned, my lungs heaving, every step feeling heavier than the last. The floor beneath me throbbed, stone pulsing beneath my feet like it had its own pulse. And then—movement on my skin.
I froze.
Something crawled. Tiny, dark, countless things—fingers, legs, mandibles. I screamed, my own voice strangled by panic. My arms flailed, but they didn't reach far enough. The sensation spread across my body, crawling into every crevice, scaling my chest, wrapping around my neck.
"Stop… stop!" I shouted, but the voice sounded small, fragile, drowned beneath a thousand whispering screeches.
And then I saw it. Thousands of them. Roaches. In the dim light, they moved as one, crawling across my skin like a living carpet. I shook violently, desperately, trying to fling them off, but they multiplied, a tide of blackness that refused to yield. My chest heaved as I screamed, lungs burning. And through it all… I heard her laugh.
It was me.
But not me.
The sound twisted inside me, splitting my mind into shards too small to gather. Each shard whispered the same thing: You created this. You brought it here. It is yours.
"Kaia…" Her voice was everywhere, inside my head, outside my head, in the crawl of every insect and in the pulse of the walls. "Why… why do you run from me? From yourself?"
I fell.
The floor dropped out, the corridor dissolved beneath me, and I was falling into a void that had no edges. No bottom. Just endless, consuming emptiness. My body twisted, arms flailing, hair whipping around me, heart hammering in my ears. I tried to call out, but the words dissolved before they reached my lips.
And then—light.
A single, pure beam struck me from somewhere above. The insects vanished, screaming into nothing, the corridors folding like paper and disappearing. I floated in the space, weightless, terrified, exposed. And there she was—my monstrous double, standing before me as if the emptiness itself had shaped her from my fear.
"You could have been different," she said. "You could have loved me. Loved yourself. But you didn't. You ran. You hid. You lied. And now… now you are mine."
The words didn't just echo—they slammed, like walls collapsing onto me, leaving me gasping, broken.
I fell to my knees. Tears streaked my face. "I… I'm sorry," I whispered. "I didn't know… I didn't understand… please, I… I never meant…"
Her smile widened. It wasn't cruel now—it was resigned. Sad. Like a storm that had finally reached shore.
"You didn't know," she said softly, stepping closer. "But ignorance doesn't absolve. You fear me… you fear yourself. And you should. Because you are me. And I am all the parts of you you tried to bury."
I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. My throat felt raw, my chest on fire. Everything in me wanted to shrink, to disappear, to hide somewhere in the empty blackness of this void.
"Look at me," she whispered, tilting my chin upward with the gentlest touch. "Really look at me."
I obeyed.
And then I saw it. The truth reflected in her eyes. The golden glow—the sharp teeth—the monstrous form—it wasn't something separate. It was me. Every hidden fear, every cruelty I refused to admit, every time I ran instead of fighting, every time I let the world dictate my story—it was all here, manifest.
It was all me.
And in that moment, something inside me broke. Not completely. Not yet. But the wall I had built around myself cracked, a jagged fracture running down the center of my chest.
"I… I didn't know," I whispered, voice trembling. "I didn't… I didn't see it…"
"You didn't want to," she said, softer now, almost tender. "And I didn't either. But here we are. Face to face. You… and all you've hidden."
The emptiness shifted. The darkness receded. The stone floor solidified beneath my knees. The golden eyes softened, becoming something human—mine. But still, the teeth remained, a reminder, a whisper of the monster within.
I sank to the floor. "I… I don't know if I can…"
"You can," she said. "You have to. Or you will never write again, never dream again, never live again. You brought this story into being. You can rewrite it. You can reclaim it. But first… first you have to face me. Face yourself."
And in that moment, I realized the depth of my own power—and the cost. The darkness, the well, the book—they weren't just punishments. They were mirrors. Each horror I had written, each fear I had ignored, each memory I had buried—they were all part of me.
I had to fight. Not against her. Not against the shadows. Not against the twisting corridors or the crawling insects.
I had to fight against my own fear.
I took a deep, shuddering breath. The void pulsed around me, responsive to my heartbeat. I looked into her eyes—the eyes that were mine—and whispered, voice small but steadying:
"I… see you. I see me."
Her monstrous form wavered. The golden glow flickered. The teeth softened. The shadows that had leaned in against us dissipated slightly, leaving a hollow, quiet space.
"You… might survive this after all," she said. And the sound was no longer mocking—it was patient, waiting. Like a teacher waiting for a student to understand the lesson too late, yet hoping they would anyway.
I sank fully to the stone floor, tears streaming, shaking with exhaustion and terror and something else. Relief, maybe. Recognition. The horror hadn't ended. The story wasn't over. But I had seen it. I had faced it.
And somehow, in the darkest, most broken part of myself, I had found a spark of control.
The void around me hummed, quivering. The golden-eyed figure—me—nodded slowly, stepping back into the shadows.
"Remember," she whispered as her form dissolved into flickers of gold light, "you are both the author and the story. Never forget that."
The world tilted. The stone beneath me shifted. The darkness swallowed me one last time, and then I felt weight. Solid, real, grounding. My eyelids fluttered open.
White walls. Sterile hospital air. The faint hum of machines. Sunlight leaking through blinds.
I was back.
And yet… part of me remained in the void, in the golden eyes, in the monster I had created. Waiting. Watching. Knowing I couldn't ever fully escape.
Because some stories, once written, never truly leave their author.