SERPENT'S HEIR

CHAPTER. 2

ARIANA'S POV

The clock on my desk read six fifteen.

I'd been staring at the same page of the manuscript for twenty minutes. The words blurred together. Ancient Greek symbols that usually came easy to me now looked like meaningless scratches.

I rubbed my eyes and leaned back in my chair. The office was quiet. Too quiet. Everyone else had gone home hours ago.

This was normal for me. Staying late. Avoiding going back to my empty apartment for as long as possible.

The museum closed at five. Visitors left. Staff packed up and headed out. But I had permission to work after hours. My boss didn't mind as long as I locked up properly.

I looked around my small office. More like a closet really. Just big enough for a desk, a chair, and floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books and boxes of artifacts waiting to be cataloged.

This was my life now. Twelve years after that night. Twelve years of building something small and safe and far from anything that reminded me of fire and blood and my parents' faces in that terrible chamber.

I worked as an archivist. Organizing ancient texts. Recording files most people ignore.

It was a quiet work, peaceful work. The kind of job where I could disappear into research and not think about the past.

Most days it worked. Most days I could lose myself in manuscripts and pottery shards and pretend I was just a normal twenty-four-year-old woman with a normal boring job.

But today wasn't most days.

I'd had the nightmare again last night. The same one that had been haunting me for twelve years. Fire, screaming, masked figures. My parents' cold eyes as they stood over that altar.

I'd woken up at three in the morning drenched in sweat and shaking. Couldn't fall back asleep. I spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about things I'd spent years trying to forget.

Now I was exhausted and unable to focus on the work that usually kept my mind occupied.

I should go home, make dinner, take my medication. Try to get some actual sleep tonight.

But the thought of walking into that tiny studio apartment alone made my chest tight. The walls always felt like they were closing in when I was tired. When the nightmares were fresh.

My phone buzzed. A text from my therapist reminding me about our appointment tomorrow. I sent back a quick confirmation and shoved the phone in my bag.

I have gone to therapy twice a month for the past six years. We usually talk about my anxiety, insomnia and trust issues. Never talking about the real reason for any of it because Dr. Morrison thought my trauma came from being abandoned by my parents in a tragic accident.

I'd learned early on that telling the truth about what I really saw got me labeled as delusional. Got me pitying looks and concerned suggestions about psychiatric evaluations.

So I lied. Told a story about abandonment and loss that people could understand and accept. I kept the nightmares about rituals and serpent symbols to myself.

I packed up my things. Locked the manuscript in the secure cabinet. Turned off my desk lamp.

Time to face the world outside my safe quiet office.

The museum was dark as I walked through the main gallery.

I locked the main door behind me and stepped out into the Brooklyn evening. The air was warm. Summer was coming. People were out on the streets. Walking dogs, pushing strollers, living normal lives.

I headed toward my apartment building three blocks away. I kept my head down. Avoided eye contact. The usual routine.

My building was old. Cheap. The kind of place where the heat barely worked in winter and the AC never worked in summer. But the rent was affordable and it was close to work.

I'd lived there for two years. Longer than I'd stayed anywhere since aging out of foster care. That felt like an accomplishment even if it was a small one.

As I approached the front steps, I saw Mrs. Chen from apartment 2B sitting outside with her grandson. And Marcus from apartment 3A watering the sad little plants in the window boxes he'd installed last month.

I should just walk past. Give a quick nod and keep going. That's what I usually did.

But something made me stop. Maybe exhaustion or loneliness or maybe just the desperate need to feel normal for five minutes.

Mrs. Chen waved when she saw me. I forced a small smile and walked over.

She asked about my day in her heavily accented English. I gave pleasant answers, work was fine, nothing special, just the usual.

Her grandson showed me a drawing he'd made. I complimented the dinosaur he'd drawn even though it looked more like a blob with teeth.

Marcus looked up from his watering and smiled. He always smiled when he saw me. Had been trying to ask me out for months in the most awkward gentle way possible.

He was nice and cute in a safe, boring way. He worked as an accountant.

Everything about him screamed normal and safe and nothing like my life.

I should have said yes one of the times he asked. Should have tried to be a normal person who went on normal dates with normal men.

But I couldn't. The thought of getting close to anyone made my chest tight.

Then I smelled smoke.

My whole body went rigid, I turned my head frantically looking for the source. In the corner of the building's small front courtyard. One of the residents had set up a tiny grill. Smoke rising in lazy spirals into the air.

Just a small fire, normal, harmless. The kind of thing people did all the time in summer.

But I couldn't breathe.

The smell filled my nose. My lungs, my head. Took me right back to that chamber twelve years ago. Fire everywhere. Smoke choking me. Heat burning my skin.

My hands started shaking. Then my whole body. Tremors I couldn't control.

Marcus was saying something. His voice sounded muffled. Like I was underwater.

The memories crashed over me. Vivid and terrible and impossible to stop.

I tried to speak. Tried to say I was fine. Tried to make some excuse and leave with dignity.

But no words came out. Just a choked sound that might have been a whimper.

Mrs. Chen's face creased with concern. She stood up and reached toward me.

I jerked back, away from her hand. Away from everyone.

I couldn't be here, couldn't be around people while I was falling apart. Couldn't let them see me like this.

I turned and rushed toward the building entrance. My vision tunneled.

I fumbled with my keys. They fell to the ground, i managed to pick them up with shaking hands that barely worked.

Marcus was behind me. Asking if I was okay. Asking what was wrong. His voice gentle and concerned and making everything worse.

The stairwell was cooler. Darker. No smoke smell. But I still couldn't breathe properly.

My chest felt like someone was sitting on it and crushing my ribs. My heart pounded so hard I thought it might break through my chest.

I made it up three steps before my legs gave out.

I sank down, sat on the stairs. Pressed my back against the wall.

My breathing was too fast. Shallow gasps that didn't bring in enough air. The kind of breathing that made you dizzy and sick.

I knew what this was. It was panic attack. I'd had them before. I knew the symptoms.

The smell of smoke still filled my nose even though I was inside now. I pressed my hands over my ears, squeezed my eyes shut and tried to block out everything.

Tried to block out the memories flooding through me. The chanting, the fire, the screaming.