Marked by midnight.

What the hell was happening to me? I staggered back, my spine colliding with the damp brick wall behind the restaurant. The cold should have grounded me. It didn’t. My heart thundered violently in my chest like a war drum, each beat echoing like thunder in my ears. I clutched the wall, desperate for something solid, something real, in a world that felt like it was slipping away from me. Even the bricks felt like they were melting beneath my fingertips. My breath came in sharp, shallow gasps, each inhale like I was breathing in broken glass. I was suffocating. My vision blurred, not from tears, but from the dizziness rolling through me. My mind raced into overdrive trying to search for answers. What was this? It felt like torture. Like death reaching for me with slow, deliberate fingers. This wasn’t panic. I knew panic as well as I knew fear. Panic had lived with me. Slept beside me. I’d raised children with it breathing down my neck. It was a cruel companion; but a familiar one. This was not. This was something different. Something ancient. It burned beneath my skin, it felt like coiled energy ready to snap. It demanded release. It began the moment I stepped out of the car; the forest air thick with tension, scent, memory. Something began to stir inside of me, seeping into my body; both unfamiliar and agonizingly familiar at the same time. Like a name you’ve forgotten but can feel in your blood. It spread like wildfire, seizing my muscles, until I collapsed with the weight of it; only barely catching myself before I hit the ground. Another wave surged through me. I gasped as my insides twisted. Heat bloomed over my skin like a fever. My legs buckled again, sending me crashing to my knees. The sharp pain and smell of blood from the grazes on my legs seemed to make the burning intensify. I clung to the wall desperately trying to save myself from falling any further. And still, it built. I stilled, frozen. Afraid that moving would make it worse again. My mind clawed for clarity, for answers but the truth was circling me like a predator. Whispering secrets that I wanted to keep hidden. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. Not after all these years. Now the panic came. Struggling to breathe, I slid further down the wall, the cold bricks scraping against my back, biting through my clothes like it knew how close I was to giving up. To surrendering to it. And for one fleeting, shameful moment.. . . . I almost let it take me. The quiet promise of death whispered to me like a lover. Entrancing me with promises of the gifts it could offer me. No more pretending. No more panic. No more pain. Just stillness. Silence. The numbness I once begged a witch to give me. The promise of nothingness felt like a safe haven. But then their faces invaded my mind. Two pairs of eyes, flickering with blue and gold. Two crooked smiles that owned my heart. Images that I knew better than my own reflection. My boys. My chest ached with something new. Guilt. The unbearable thought of leaving them behind. Of leaving them without me. The selfishness of the desire to be free of this life. Who would protect them if I gave up? Who would tell them the truths I’ve buried so deep? Who would explain what they really are. . . . if that day ever comes? I couldn’t go. I couldn’t give in. Not yet. I had to breathe. I had to survive. I had to fight this. If not for me, then for them. My life would have ended a long time ago if it wasn’t for those two. For the boys that were more precious to me than air itself. I didn’t care about me. . . the desire to live a life for myself had passed a long time ago. I only cared about them and that meant being there for them. At least until they were grown. Strong. Until they no longer needed me. Until they could live without me and still have happiness, not just survive. Only then would I take death’s hand and let it lead me into the dark. Into the nothingness. But not tonight. I closed my eyes and pressed a trembling hand to my chest. I could do this. I had to. For them. “Take a deep breath and count to three,” my mother’s voice whispered in my mind. Her voice a fragile, distant, memory but still there. A ghost among so many others. So much pain locked away to protect myself. “One… Two… Three…” It didn’t help. The burning stayed. The pressure built. The wild, primal force within me rose like a tide. I hadn’t felt anything this overwhelming in years. Not since I.. .. I felt the remaining colour in my face drain away. A chill enveloped me, running down my spine and mixing with the fire burning inside. “Don’t think about her…” I pleaded with myself. But the thought came anyway. Uninvited. Unstoppable. A name buried in silence. In pain. A secret I swore I’d never speak again. But in the dark of the forest, even silence breaks. “Midnight.”