Chapter Six– Blood in His Eyes
710 Words
From Emma’s Point of View
“They don’t tell you that familiarity can sometimes be another kind of prison.
Not freedom… but captivity, painted in softer colors.”
He left me…
The sound of the door closing wasn’t ordinary.
It felt as though it shut on something inside me, not just the room.
I stared at the food before me. It looked delicious…
Like something normal, in a time when nothing was normal anymore.
But how could I eat?
My body trembled…
My heart ached with questions, betrayal, and loneliness.
I forced a few bites down. The taste… wasn’t bad.
Maybe he cooked it.
What a cruel irony… even in this, I felt a strange intimacy I couldn’t tell was comforting or terrifying.
Then I slipped into sleep… or maybe I simply fell, the way broken things fall from the edge of a table.
And I allowed the nightmares to visit me… without resistance.
---
I dreamed.
That I was inside a cage…
An iron cage, hanging above a fighting ring.
Crowds below screamed, cheered, roared.
And Daniel… stood there, beneath the cage, over the lifeless body of a man.
Josh.
Yes, it was him…
Thrown aside like a shattered doll.
And Daniel screamed, his voice rising from depths no human should carry:
“You’re mine!”
Then his eyes met mine—
Bleeding.
Not tears. Blood. Only blood.
---
I woke up in terror.
A gasp caught in my throat, my heart running wild as though I hadn’t slept,
As though I had been running through the dream itself.
I drank from the water bottle. One sip. Two…
But the taste wasn’t water.
It was bitter. Like the anxiety lodged beneath my ribs.
I glanced at my phone.
Five a.m.
My God… That wasn’t just a dream.
It was a prophecy.
A vision.
It clung to my skin like a delayed truth.
How?
How would Daniel find Josh?
How would it end in a fighting ring?
What story am I living in—and who am I within it?
I sighed…
Went to the bathroom.
Washed my face, my teeth, my heart—
Useless.
---
I went downstairs.
The house was too quiet…
As if the walls listened, and the floors remembered.
I thought of my father…
My mother…
My little brother, who had no fault in any of this.
Father.
A kind man to the point of sin.
He loved my mother so much, he lost the ability to say “no.”
Love makes some men weak.
And no one ever tells them how to love without shattering.
Mother?
Selfish, but cleverly so.
Did she love my brother? Maybe.
Me? No.
Never.
I waited for her eyes, her touch, even a word…
But she always preferred “control” over “love.”
Even when she told me about Josh…
After my first year in Russia.
She said it like a passing remark:
“He’s my friend’s son. You’ll marry him eventually.”
As if I were a contract.
A thing to be reserved.
---
I stepped into the kitchen. Empty.
Opened the fridge.
Found strawberry jam, bread. Ate.
But the silence devoured me more than the food did.
I washed my hands and walked back upstairs.
But then…
I heard it.
Sounds.
Thuds.
Groans.
A strange mix of pain and madness.
I froze.
Turned my head like someone hearing what shouldn’t be heard.
The sound came from a door at the end of the hallway.
Two doors past Daniel’s.
I hesitated… then called his name.
No answer.
My heart pounded.
My feet moved anyway.
I opened the door… stepped inside.
---
I froze.
Breathless.
Silent.
Time itself stilled.
A vast room.
Training equipment everywhere.
A punching bag swinging from the ceiling.
And him… Daniel.
Shirtless.
Only shorts on.
His body drenched in sweat,
Every muscle screaming with rage, grief, ruin.
He struck the bag with brutal force…
As if he were pouring the entire world into it.
As if he were pouring me into it.
I couldn’t breathe.
What was happening to me?
What was happening to him?
What was happening between us?
It felt like watching a man burn alive…
And I didn’t know if I wanted to save him,
Or simply…
Burn with him.
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