≿━━━━༺ 𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 ༻━━━━≿
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My thumb hovered over the message, instinctively.
"Leaving your food unfinished is bad manners, Princess, especially when you know you're going to need a lot of energy later."
I should've just thrown the phone away.
Instead, I just... stared at it, like the last time.
My breath hitched unevenly, a sharp stinging pain in my chest.
How long had he been watching me?
How close had he gotten to me?
Was it a guess—or had he actually seen me walk away from the table?
But wasn't it Impossible?
So many guards, so many servants, so many family members.
Yet, he'd managed to know exactly what I was doing, again.
What truly bothered me wasn't him texting, I mean it was, but not quite like how much it irritated me when I look at his texts, in that obvious mocking tone.
I locked the damn screen.
Tossed the phone onto the plush bed again.
Then picked it up exactly two seconds later.
Blocked the damn number.
Deleted the damn thread.
Turned off the damn notifications.
Turned them back on.
And still—I didn't feel better, worse, not even close to better.
Because he'd just find another way.
I paced around again.
Tight circles.
Like prey in a cage, knowing it's about to get devoured.
I was unexpectedly taken aback by my image in the mirror. My pupils were slightly blown, and my eyes were wide. The misty air that entered through the windows had soaked my hair. Too pale, as though my face had lost its light.
I wasn't scared.
I wasn't, or at least I was trying to convince myself.
I was just—aware. Hyper-aware. Of everything. Of how seen I felt in a house where everyone pretended, they saw nothing.
Fuck
I really needed to distract myself.
Maybe a playlist.
Maybe a nap.
Maybe call Nyra—no. Not her. Not today.
I opened my drawer again, took out the silver box.
The inside filled with polaroids of me, Mara and Jeremy, back when I was in the boarding school, in Switzerland, dried petals, concert bracelets, a crumpled note from Aarik, and Mara's old cross-chain.
Things that used to make me feel real, alive, breathing.
Now?
Just paper.
The phone rang again.
This time, not a stalker.
Worse, actually.
Sharanya Jaiswal.
"Fuck," I muttered under my breath, staring at her name flashing across the screen, annoyed. I let it ring twice before swiping.
"What."
"Good morning to you too," came her always dry, amused voice. "Don't worry. I'm not calling to dissect your dreams."
"I don't dream," I said, already pacing back to the window.
"Sure. And I don't wear black to funerals. Listen, just checking in—did you take your meds, or did you skip them again?"
I paused. Blinked.
How the fuck did she always know?
"Yeah," I muttered.
"Raya."
"I did," I snapped, sharper and more aggressive than I had intended. "Two. Before the breakfast."
On the other end, there was a beat of silence, not accusatory, but just aware. She did not attack me for having an aggressive voice. As usual, she simply moved on.
"The rain's hit your side too, huh? Good for you, you love rain so much." she asked, more gently. "All sessions cancelled today. Power's out at the clinic. Thought maybe we could just do a quick call. Nothing heavy."
I hesitated.
She noticed.
"You don't have to if you don't want to, you know."
That line.
Manipulation in silk and roses.
If I said no, I'd seem unstable. If I said yes, I'd have to talk.
Classic therapists move.
"...Fine," I grumbled, sitting back on the edge of my bed, cross-legged. "Just don't shrink my brain, okay?"
A soft laugh. "Sure, sweetheart."
I rolled my eyes, but some tension ebbed.
Ten minutes passed just like that.
Her voice, calm and low, nudging things without forcing them.
"Still getting those racing thoughts?"
"Sometimes."
"On a scale of one to ten, how intrusive is the urge to isolate?"
"Ten. But also... zero. Depends on who's in the room."
"Fair. Trust issues still stabbing everything?"
"Only every waking hour."
"I assume that I'm at the top of your backstabbing friends list then"
"Wrong, you assume that you're my friend."
She smiled through the phone. I didn't return it.
"Any nightmares?"
"No."
"Raya."
"Fine. One. A week ago."
"What happened in it?"
"Don't remember."
"Try."
"...He was watching me, the boy in that black hoodie. But I couldn't move. Not even blink. Like my body forgot it was mine."
More silence.
I heard her scribble something on her end. Probably another psychobabble page. What does she even write in that? Bills? or maybe Tic-Tac-Toe?
She cleared her throat. "Can I ask you something really weird?"
I raised an eyebrow instinctively, even though she couldn't see it.
"What isn't weird at this point?"
Her tone changed. Softer. Slower.
"Do you remember much from your childhood? Before Switzerland?"
I blinked.
Ok let me be real, that did crash into my brain.
I Froze.
The room suddenly felt smaller. Tighter. Like the air had dropped in temperature.
I breathed inhaled sharply, feeling suffocated.
"...No," I said, way too fast. Suspiciously fast.
Another pause.
"Nothing at all?"
I swallowed hard, fingernails digging into the fabric of my pyjama pants.
"There's no reason to, now is there?"
"Not unless it's trying to come back, you know" she said gently.
The ceiling fan above me creaked once, and that was all it took for my skin to prickle.
"I said I don't remember. Can we really not?" I muttered, getting off the bed. I needed to move.
"Of course," Sharanya said. "But Raya, if you ever do—"
"I won't," I snapped. "Some memories are exactly where they belong. In the fucking dark."
She was quiet again.
Then a long, exaggerated breath.
"You're gonna be okay," she said quietly. "Even when it doesn't feel like it. You're gonna be okay."
My hands trembled slightly. I hated it. I hated how fucking easily she got under my skin.
The rain grew louder outside the mansion. Like the sky itself was listening.
Then—the line cracked.
Her voice faded.
Then—
Call ended.
I stared at the screen.
Blank. Empty.
Not even the stalker was there anymore.
Only the reflection of my face.
Still.
And yet not still at all.
The call ended.
As simple as that.
No adieu. Not a warning. The only sound after silence was the static hush.
I gazed blankly at the screen.
The phone was then slowly lowered.
Something had changed, but the room was quiet once more.
There's something... strange.
I smelled it at that point.
Jasmine.
faint. Gentle. old. Not the pricey synthetic type Riyana wore. No.
It was softer this time. warmer. like old cotton with crushed petals.
similar to what seemed like my childhood.
As if I should never have remembered.
I blinked.
All of a sudden, I was no longer in the room.
A blur. A field? A driveway? Someplace with dirt. Stones. The sky above, hazy and Grey, sign of rain? maybe.
My knees ached.
No—the knees of my younger self. Grazed.
I was lying down. I was aware of that.
Then a hand.
offered.
Palm Open. behind it, in the sunlight.
attached to a boy who's a little older than me.
He had a white shirt that was slightly soiled. His fingers ached as if he had lost a battle with a bush.
The voice—
I was unable to hear it.
Absolutely no sound.
As if the memory had been silenced.
But I could feel the way he said it.
"Come on."
And I took his hand.
He pulled me up.
That's all.
That's all it gave me.
I stumbled into the edge of my bed after gasping and taking a step back.
The world had returned. My room. My breath. The tightening in my chest.
What the actual fuck was that?
I clutched my temples.
The headache was instant—sharp and blooming behind my eyes like firecrackers going off in the back of my skull.
No. No no no.
Fuck no.
I stumbled back to the drawer. With trembling fingers, pulled it open. I grabbed the silver pill box and opened the lid, causing it to rattle.
Two more white pills.
Sharp edges.
Sharp relief.
I dry-swallowed them with nothing in reach.
The taste clung to my tongue like still burning ash. If that even made sense.
My reflection in the mirror blurred as I leaned on the desk for support, breath uneven.
My voice came out cracked. A whisper.
"Don't come back."
I had no idea to whom I was speaking.
The boy.
the past.
My own fucking malfunctioning brain.
didn't matter.
because the scent of jasmine remained.
Now, Fainter. But there.
As if it were a part of the air itself.
As if it had been waiting for me to take another breath.
It had been 15 minutes since I had that..I don't know. Hallucination?
Now the scent of jasmine was dying.
Or perhaps I was.
didn't matter.
I had to breathe.
Not the sterile, fake kind that the air conditioner pumps in.
The kind that lived far away from glass walls and marble floors.
I put on an oversized, stolen Aarik's hoodie and padded down the hallway barefoot.
Everyone was still occupied with their own dysfunctional behaviour.
Reyaan, calm and icy.
Riyana, piercing with strength.
Dad, acting like he's still alive.
Rivaan and Aarik arguing over why our mansion should have been in the mountains instead. Agreed.
I slipped out. Keep quiet.
The house was too large to notice my disappearance.
Near the west wing, I had to push open a heavy door.
The library.
Actually, it's more like a museum.
shelves covered in dust. velvet curtains.
A place that is too immobile to be inhabited.
Nobody ever entered this place. Not unless they were hiding or searching for something specific.
That's precisely why I was fucking here.
I passed the stacks of books I had never read.
Past the grandfather clock, which had stood at 4:07 since I was fourteen years old.
To the small nook by the window, where the light always falls perfectly.
and stopped.
There was something wrong.
The painting in the corner was tilted.
Not by chance. Not easy.
Just enough tilt to convey a message.
I exhaled.
I moved in closer.
There was a fingerprint on the wall behind it.
Only one. Smudged. faint.
Not mine.
With my heart hammering against my ribs, I slowly retreated.
Another detail caught my eye.
The drawer in the old oak desk was cracked open.
It was always locked. Always.
The key had been gone for years.
But now—wide open.
My hands trembled uncomfortably as I reached for the metal handle.
Inside, nothing explosive. Nothing dramatic. Nothing for the cinematics.
Just—
A photo.
Face-down.
I picked it up, my lips pressed tightly.
A polaroid. Slightly curled at the edges.
When I turned it over—
The photo was blank.
White.
Wiped.
But I knew someone had been there, I could feel it. Something had been erased. Deliberately.
A chill ran down my spine.
I tucked the photo into the pocket of my hoodie and stepped back, breathing sharp through my nose.
Someone was in this room.
And it wasn't me.
Someone.
≿━━━━༺ 𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 ༻━━━━≿
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