THE SEALED LUNA

CHAPTER TWO: SECOND CHANCE

CHAPTER TWO: SECOND CHANCE

The wind blew excessively, burning into my lungs.

My chest tightened.

It hurts. God, it hurt. The last thing I remember was not being able to breathe at all, and now there was too much air. Too much life. Too much of everything I thought I'd lost.

Fear gripped at me, so I didn't open open my eyes.

I was afraid of what I would see.

What if I opened them and I was still there? Still on that stone with five hundred eyes on me and Cyrus's back turned. What if this was just the last thing my brain did before it shut off completely?

So I just laid there and listened.

No drums. No chanting. No voices saying "remove her".

Just quiet. And a bird chirping nearby. A stupid, ordinary bird that had no idea that I was supposed to be dead. That had no idea the world had already held a funeral for me and moved on.

The sound was wrong. Birds shouldn't be singing. Not today. Not when I was supposed to be cold.

My fingers found my throat anyway, moving on their own like they didn't trust me. They drifted lower, tracing my collarbone, my ribs, my wrist. I searched for torn skin. Dried blood. Bruises. Anything that could serve as confirmation of what happened. Proof that I wasn't hallucinating.

There was nothing. Just skin, smooth skin and traitorous. Skin that had healed when it shouldn't have. Skin that had no memory of the pain my mind still carried.

I pressed harder until it hurt. Because pain meant I was here.

The smell of blood flooded my nose so suddenly that I gagged. Copper and stone and fear. It was so real I could taste it on my tongue.

My knees hit the mattress before I realized I had moved. My whole body folded in on itself.

For one terrifying heartbeat, I wasn't in my room.

I was back on that cold stone. The air was different there. Heavy.

Everyone murmuring loudly. Whispers that cut deeper than claws.

Cyrus wouldn't look at me. Not once.

Someone's boot scraped against the floor.

"Take her away".

I flinched so hard my shoulder slammed into the wall. Pain shot down my arm and I welcomed it.

Silence rushed back in.

My eyes fluttered open.

The ceiling was mine. The c***k was mine. I’d counted it every night for eighteen years.

I whispered it to make sure it was real. "My room."

My voice sounded wrong. Too small. Too alive.

I forced myself to sit up. The room tilted. The faded curtains. I'd begged mother not to replace them because I liked the little flower stitched into the edges. I used to think they looked like tiny wolves running. The wooden sword father carved for me when I was seven, still leaning in the corner even though I'd outgrown it years ago. I kept it because he smiled when he gave it to me. The c***k in the ceiling I'd counted every night for eighteen years whenever sleep wouldn't come.

This... was home.

It took a long time before I believed it. Because homes don't take back the dead.

Downstairs, a floorboard creaked. The third one from the stairs. It had always done that.

"Selena?"

My mother's voice.

But it was young. It was the voice from before she learned to whisper around me like I might break. Before she learned to cry in the bathroom so I wouldn't hear.

My heart cracked right down the middle.

The door opened and there she was, holding a mug. Steam curled up and hit my face. Chamomile and honey. The same thing she made me when I had nightmares as a kid.

She smiled.

And it broke me.

Because that smile was 3 days away from being the last one she would give me.

My body leaned towards her before I could stop it. I wanted to bury my face in her shoulder and tell her I was sorry. Sorry for dying. Sorry for leaving her. Sorry for the phone calls she would get that never came.

She had no idea she was speaking to a daughter she had buried once.

Instead, I stood there. Frozen. Because if I touched her, I might shatter.

"For your nerves," she said softly, holding the mug out. Her eyes were boring into mine. "Big day in three days, huh?"

Three days. The words settled in my chest like a stone.

I took the mug. My hands were shaking. The warmth seeped into my palms and it felt like a lie. Like I deserved to feel warm.

I walked past her without a word, down the stairs, to the kitchen window where the grass was still wet from last night. The same grass. The same window. Same everything but a different me .

Last time I drank every drop. I remembered sitting right here, nervous and stupid and hopeful. I couldn't remember why that mattered. Only that every instinct I had screamed... Don't. Don't relive it. Don't drink it. Don't be that girl again.

So I tipped the mug. Watched the tea spill out and soak into the dirt. Watched it disappear like it had never existed.

Behind me, the silence stretched until it hurt.

"Selena?" Confused now. Hurt. "Did I do something wrong?"

I set the mug down. My hands were shaking and I couldn't make them stop. "I can't," I whispered. "Not today."

I went back upstairs and locked the door. Pressed my back against it like that would keep the next three days out.

My phone was on the desk. I didn't want to look, but I did anyway. My fingers hovered over it like it might burn me.

August 2nd.

8:23 AM.

Cyrus: happy early birthday sel:) see you at the ceremony.

I read it three times. Four. The little smiley face at the end. The casualness of it.

To think that in three days time , he.. would reject me.

August 2nd.

Three days before we turned eighteen. Three days before the Awakening ceremony.

Three days before he looked through me like I was nothing. Three days before my own pack stood by and watched me bleed. Three days before death found me.

"No," I breathed. "No, no, no..."

Tears blured my eyes as I took painful breaths in .

The sound that came out of me wasn't a sob. It was worse.

I threw the phone. It hit the wall and cracked. The screen spiderwebbed but it was still on. Still showing his name.

This wasn't a memory. This was happening again.

I pulled my diary from under the mattress. The one I'd hidden because some things were too ugly to say out loud. My hands wouldn't stop shaking.

I don't want to.

I ruled it out.

I died.

I ruled that out too.

The words were jagged. Angry. The pen nearly tore the paper.

The pen hovered over the page. Outside the birds were singing, like the world had continued without knowing it had already lost me once. Like the world didn't care that I had to do this all over again.

I stared at the blank space until the ink blurred. I wanted to believe I could change anything. I wanted to believe I was stronger now. That three days of being dead taught me how to live.

But all I could feel was the stone under my knees. The cold. The weight of five hundred stares.

My hand tightened around the pen until my knuckles went white.

This time... I would try.

I didn't know how. I didn't know if I could. But I had to try.

I closed my diary.

Tomorrow, I would have to live the beginning of my nightmare all over again.

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