Chapter 39 : Internal Battles

*Lynn*

Though the night was long and dark, the shadows creeping across the stone floors like snakes seeking prey, I was wide awake, my mind a flurry in the silence. I had lost track of the days and nights I spent trapped in my rooms, unable to see the outside.

Calix came to visit me every morning and every evening, saying the same things meant to calm my mind.

“I’m sorry,” he’d say. “I wish I didn’t have to do this.”

Then I’d reply, “Don’t do it if you don’t wish to.”

“You’ll leave.”

“I have to.”

“And I can’t let you.”

The conversation was always the same, an unchanging tide in a never-ending sea. It became a monotonous routine that bled into itself, overlapping until it became a continuous loop.

I began to dream it as much as I lived it. I almost hated the cage I was trapped in. I wanted to hate it. But I couldn’t. I very well might have done the same if it were Calix trying to sacrifice himself.