Step. Step. Step.
The stone stairs spiraled into the dungeon's maw, each tread grinding under Eli's bare feet, cold as a grave's embrace. The torch in her hand sputtered, casting jagged shadows that crawled across the damp stone walls like wounded insects. The deeper she went, the more the air thickened—first musty with old earth, then sour with mold, and finally something sharper, acidic, a copper tang that clung to the back of her throat. Blood. Or its ghost.
Her nightgown stuck to her skin, soaked in sweat and humid , the fabric so thin it may as well have been her own flesh. It whispered around her thighs with every step, a slow slither like a snake curling around a lover's leg. But she barely noticed. Her breathing was measured, steady, but her eyes burned—not with tears, but with rage held on a leash. A rage sharpened by memory, honed by loss. Every step felt like a countdown.
Every time she returned here, something in her fractured a little more.
