I hate that I don't go to help. That I can't. That even if I tried, my legs wouldn't carry me, or if they did, I'd just fall to my knees, bleeding from the stump of my arm. My hand curls and flexes uselessly in memory of a limb that isn't there.

Instead, I wander, my feet shuffling across the cracked floor, my hand ghosting over splintered tables and chairs, feeling their ruined textures. Shelves—regals, memories of Ren gurgle up, he used to say regals instead of shelves. I would slow down, take a moment for myself, if only rarely; however, my legs move on their own, my hands going through dust and leathered books. My heartbeat is so loud it drowns out the screams.

Then I see it.

A paper between books.

At first, it's just a smudge in the dim light, meaningless. But the candles burn brighter, the orange deepening to furious red. Shadows shrink. And I see what sits on that paper. My eyes widen.

It's a finger. Desiccated. Mummified. Bony and thin as truth itself.

My first instinct should be horror. Revulsion. Flight. To think that I look at something so trivial, while a boy screams in agony right next to me. I should turn, should fight, I should rescue the boy and get away.

But I don't.

I'm not myself. I am long lost.

I feel like a passenger in my skull, watching as my body bends to pick up the finger, as if I were in Aston's body, but with the difference that I am now inside my own body. My real body. My hand trembles. My lips part. Holding the mummified index finger inside my own and putting it reluctantly against my lips. I don't chew. I swallow it whole, the bone scraping my throat, lodging for an instant before sliding into my stomach with a nauseating thud.

I stand there in silence, my mouth dry, sweat soaking my collar.

"How long?"

Her voice drifts to me from the doorway, distant even though she's just outside. Maybe it's the angle, or the way her back is turned, but it feels like there are miles between us.

"How long?" She asks again.

But the words are fading even as they leave her tongue.

The candles burn higher, the flames rolling into spheres of molten red. My eyes go dark at the edges. My vision swims, no longer red but black, thick as tar. My body is no longer mine.

I feel disconnected like a blade separating soul from flesh.

Again.

I'm trapped in the void I'd barely escaped before.

…

The void devours me. My soul screams, but there is no sound.

This time, the blackness doesn't last as long. Colors, impossible to name, surge into view. My vision turns to madness. I stand on a vast plain, the ground painted in hues that should not exist. Light burns from every direction, but I don't shield my eyes. I can't.

I'm not in control.

When was I ever? Th$is. c+h$a@p!t+er is p#a+r@t of the co%ll%ect^i+on on *$.$

I'm the core of something else, something I hate. But the skin around me is horribly familiar. It is I. Or was.

I walk.

Bare feet splash into thick, metallic water. I don't look down. I don't dare.

Instead, I embrace the light, let it burn away thought. It's blood. Not my own. I'd expect it to be red, to match my weak, human-like blood. But it isn't.

It's gold. I have not seen a color like this. I only know of three in person, but I must admit that this blood, if one still can call it that, looks more valuable than any other.

Liquid wealth, shimmering with promise. But all are the same, if not being red in color, one is my enemy, the enemy who killed my brother, my family.

I wade deeper, my body naked and gleaming with this false luxury, coated in someone else's death. All around me, corpses float, their skin broken, their mouths agape in silent horror. This body—I—no this body feels hatred. An anger so deep that even if I were not inside his body, I would be able to see it in his eyes from miles away.

Something stirs ahead of me. A silhouette in the blood, the golden blood.

A woman she's lying there. Surrounded by her dead.

Her face is eyeless, empty sockets staring into me, seeing everything. I know her. I hate her. I pity her. Maybe she's every victim I couldn't save. Maybe she's Ren. Maybe she's me.

The sun above burns icy. A pale light that freezes my bones even as it sears my skin.

"Sebastian!"

The voice is raw, howling.

I turn.

My mouth twists into a smile I don't control. I taste bile.

He's running at me, a man of gold, literally—his skin, hair, eyes all shades of gilded malice. Like a statue come to life, roaring in fury.

My smile widens until it splits something inside me. I begin to laugh.

"Apollo," I say, the name of the golden man sprinting at me with a speed unimaginable to the thought of any mortal being, but somehow, I—this body reacts.

My eyes squeeze shut with the force of it, and the world tears apart.

I'm falling.