CHAPTER FOUR: WHEN LOVE BECOMES PUNISHMENT
Sophia did not sleep.
She did not sit. She did not eat. She barely even breathed.
Her body had begun to react to the Moonstone in ways that were no longer subtle. Her hands shook continuously, fine tremors that left cups rattling and paper fluttering. Her stomach clenched and unclenched in nervous spasms. Every beat of her heart sounded like a warning drum. Her lungs felt tight, as if the air had turned to liquid, thick and heavy, flooding her chest.
And yet she was alive.
Barely.
It was Emma who paid first.
Emma awoke in a cold sweat. The mark on her palm had spread further than ever before, white lines snaking up her arm, branching, twisting. Her heart raced violently. She tried to stand and fell, muscles refusing to obey, legs buckling beneath the invisible weight pressing them down. Every movement was agony. Every thought of Sophia brought a flare of white fire across her skin.
Her mind began to fracture. The whispers had returned, louder than before.
You have taken. You have borrowed. You have stolen.
Return it.
Return her.
The words echoed in her skull. They were not voices. They were laws. And she had broken them.
"I—I didn't mean to," Emma gasped, curling into herself, teeth clenching against the pulse of pain. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…"
The Moonstone, far across the lagoon on Sophia's neck, pulsed in response. A cold, deliberate pulse, confirming that Emma's suffering was not accidental. The stone had decided what had been owed, and Emma had already taken more than she could afford.
Sophia felt it immediately. The pulse traveled through the water, through the air, and into her chest. It was like a spear through her sternum. Her knees buckled, and she fell to the floor. She had never felt anything like this before—the Moonstone punishing someone she loved for her own desire, and punishing her in return for the inability to shield her beloved.
Fear arrived in a tangible wave, hot and suffocating. She could not breathe. Every instinct screamed to run, to hide, to collapse entirely—but there was nowhere to go. The house itself seemed to press down on her, walls tightening, beams groaning, the air growing thicker with each heartbeat.
And the Moonstone watched.
Hours passed. Or perhaps minutes. Sophia had no concept of time. The world had narrowed to two points: herself and Emma.
Every thought of Emma, every flicker of memory, sent spikes of pain through both of them. Sophia's hands trembled, her teeth clenching, knuckles turning white as she tried to repress the memories that rose unbidden: Emma laughing in the sun, Emma running across wet pavement, Emma's hand brushing hers for a moment too long.
And the Moonstone did not forgive thought.
It punished.
Sophia tried to focus on something neutral—arithmetic, recitations, prayers—but each effort was interrupted. The whispers of the stone and the memory of Emma pressed against her mind like tides. Panic pooled in her stomach. She felt as though she were dissolving from the inside, fear consuming her flesh first, her nerves second, her mind last.
"I can't—I can't…" she muttered, tears streaking her face. Her reflection in the window was strange, foreign, a girl hollowed out by dread.
The Moonstone pulsed again, faintly. Sophia flinched. She knew what the pulse meant: Emma's suffering had intensified, and the stone was reminding her of balance, that pain was owed and must be taken.
Emma's pain grew worse.
She began to vomit blood-tinged water, the phantom taste of lagoon salt thick in her throat. She tried to move, tried to flee, tried to escape the invisible chains tightening around her body—but the marks burned brighter, veins glowing, spreading up her arms, across her shoulders, creeping toward her chest.
Her skin prickled with static, like the air before a storm. Her heartbeat was frantic, unsteady, hammering in her temples. And in her mind, Sophia's voice came in fragments, distorted by fear:
"Don't—stop—I can't—please—Emma…"
Emma screamed, body rigid, limbs quivering as if every nerve were a wire stretched taut. The Moonstone had marked her. It had chosen its punishment, and Emma was already paying the price.
Sophia's fear transformed into something darker: paranoia.
Every sound became a threat. The wind rattling the windows? A messenger of the stone. A distant car horn? A signal of Emma's suffering. Every movement in the house was magnified, amplified, a proof that the world was conspiring against her. She could feel Emma's pain through the Moonstone as vividly as if it were her own body tearing apart.
And yet she could do nothing.
"Iya Morẹnikẹ," Sophia whispered, voice trembling. "I can't… I can't save her."
Her grandmother's face was calm, expression carved from stone. "You never could," she said. "This is not about saving. This is about enduring. And enduring always costs."
Sophia's body shuddered. "But she's dying."
"She is living," Iya Morẹnikẹ replied. "But living has a cost, child. And that cost is yours to carry."
Days passed—or perhaps it was a week; Sophia could no longer tell. Time blurred into the rhythm of pulses and flares.
Fear began to twist love.
Sophia could no longer remember what it was like to think of Emma without dread. Every memory, every longing, every tender thought brought with it immediate consequences: nausea, vertigo, trembling. She began to suppress feelings before they could arise. She began to treat Emma as a problem to be contained, a variable in the Moonstone's calculation. She told herself that this was kindness. That she was protecting Emma.
But love does not like cages.
Emma, sensing Sophia's withdrawal, mirrored the behavior. If distance protected Sophia from pain, she would create distance—even in thought. She twisted memories, focused on irritation, frustration, envy, anything that dulled the heat of her desire. Each success brought relief, yes, but relief that tasted like guilt.
And the Moonstone fed on this: fear, guilt, anxiety, unspoken cruelty, the corruption of love into survival instinct.
The first confrontation came quietly. Sophia avoided Emma's calls, avoided glances, refused messages. Emma could feel the tension through the Moonstone. Fear rippled into her thoughts:
She hates me. She blames me. My love is poison.
Emma lashed out, a desperate, trembling message:
If thinking of me hurts you, maybe it's better if I disappear.
The stone flared in response.
Sophia read the words and froze. Her chest ached with panic. She typed back three times, deleted everything, finally sending:
Do not come here.
Instant relief—immediate, terrible, and poisoned. Sophia felt calm, but the relief was tainted by the knowledge that it came from pushing Emma away. The Moonstone approved. And approval from the stone meant: pain, fear, and suffering were justified, and both of them were now trapped in their own torment.
Emma received the message and felt the transformation of love into weapon. She cannot even bear me. I hurt her just by existing. The guilt twisted, then hardened into desperation. She began to manipulate her own feelings, forcing herself to feel cold, distant. Every flicker of care dulled. Every warmth was a calculated act.
And yet—despite the fear, despite the pain—she could not stop thinking of Sophia.
Love and fear were now inseparable. Love had become punishment. Punishment had become necessity.
The Moonstone pulsed between them like a heartbeat neither could escape.
Weeks later, Sophia and Emma faced each other in person.
Neither could speak of affection without flinching. Every smile was measured. Every touch tested, calculated. Love had become strategy. Fear had become weapon. Desire had become liability.
The Moonstone pulsed.
And for the first time, both girls understood the full weight of the choice: their bond, their love, their desire, was killing them—emotionally, physically, spiritually—and they were powerless to stop it.
The lagoon outside swelled. The wind whispered warnings.
The Moonstone glowed.
And love—once beautiful, once dangerous only for its intensity—had become the very instrument of their suffering.