CHAPTER 35
In the beginning, there was silence. And then there was me—returning from somewhere I don’t remember going.
I woke up with the taste of metal on my tongue.
Not blood. Not exactly. But something like it—sharp and unfamiliar, like licking the inside of a battery. The room was spinning slightly, and my eyelids felt too heavy for my face. For a second, I thought I was dreaming.
But the ceiling above me was real.
And worse—it was familiar.
The faded blue paint. The tiny crack that ran from the bulb to the corner like a jagged scar. The whirring of the ceiling fan that never turned properly unless you gave the switch a slap.
My mother’s house.
But something was wrong with the air. Thick. Warm. Stale.
I sat up slowly. My bones ached like I’d run ten miles through cement. My th
