Too high

"How many times has this occurred after the first incident?" she questioned, clearing her throat as they departed from the library together.

"I witnessed him like that at the death of his mother," told Davina and folded her arms across her large bosom. "After that, he just... left."

"We don't know how he managed himself all these decades," Gwen mumbled and Eva noticed the visible amount of guilt burdening her shoulders.

Eva didn't ask anything further as Davina informed them that she had to go and take care of an important business and would be back later in the morning. She and Gwen parted ways in the middle of the living room as Gwen patted her shoulder the last time and offered her a comforting smile.

"Don't you dare forget that you're family," she spoke with a wide grin and glare in her eyes as Eva chuckled, distracted for the moment, and nodded in reply.

'Family...'

She saw Gwen walk away as her lips parted to mumble her thoughts out.

"I'll make sure not to lose my family this time. No matter how temporary I will be..."

Her body ached everywhere because of the climbing and running she had done the whole day. Her feet led her to her room but then Eva paused, her hand midway on its path to the door knob.

Nibbling on her bottom lip, she retracted her hand and took a few steps to reach another familiar-looking door which was now no longer broken. She remembered how her powers had thrown him back. Why hadn't she asked him if he'd been hurt or not?

'How many times did I make you bleed without even knowing it?'

Hesitantly, she pushed down the ebony handle and cautiously walked into the darkened room. The curtains were pulled shut as her eyes scanned the place and then landed on the man she had come to see.

He lay there in the middle of his black silk sheets like a fallen devil who met his doom. His eyes were closed yet his chest heaved up and down slowly which made it easier for her to breathe as she stepped closer to him.

Her hand absently wandered over to his messed-up strands of hair. Her finger touched a lock and Eva instantly snatched back her hand, her eyes wide. She hoped deep inside that he wouldn't wake up because of her recklessness.

'What if he didn't recognize me again?'

Shaking her head, she bit her lip hard and turned around ready to walk away. Casting a last glance at his peaceful face, she opened the door and shut it back again behind her.

Her eyes traveled to her door but instead, she slid down his door to the floor. Leaning her head back, she wondered when everything had started to go wrong.

The day she met him, she wondered with a wry smile and closed her eyes losing herself to all her memories.

The time when he had looked her in the eye for the first time...

And now, soon all these memories would be replaced with darkness and chaos.

And just because of her, all these innocent people would have to go and face the upcoming war.

Eden would no longer resemble a safe place considering how they managed to break her here too.

Eva tried to avoid it, but restlessness flooded her lungs, raced through her veins, and weighed down her heart like a heavy boulder. She couldn't sleep, couldn't move. She just sank and sank and sank.

Lower.

Deeper.

The darkness rose to greet her, and soon she was cloaked and drowning. She tried to fight it—panic hovered at the edge of existence—but it was no use. She was not strong enough.

She would never be strong enough...

And so, Eva plunged until she wondered if she would ever reach the bottom. Would it matter? There was no comfort found in this void, only hazy doubt and the debilitating weight of uncertainty.

This wasn't new.

This was her nature.

Her present, past, and future.

The conflict was old and had been going on all her life, with no real winner in sight. Balance was an unexplored theory as she ravaged her mind to find something that made sense. To end that continuous and forever ongoing battle between her logical mind and emotional heart.

Eva should have known that it would always last.

Tonight's battle was fierce and unrelenting—as unforgiving as any external war. Her stomach rolled with every memory, her head pounded with every breath, and her body ached with every thought. It was a war that made her internally bleed as sleep fled at the sight of the horrors that fluttered through her mind like the blank pages of a book.

Rest vanished as agitation greeted her like another old friend, there to make up for the lost time despite Eva's bone-deep exhaustion.

She was so tired.

Her hair had come undone at some point. Her legs twitched. Fingers and toes tingled as if being poked with tiny pins and nails. Spots all over her body itched as she helplessly sat there with no companion in sight.

Her pain was her own.

It bothered her.

Everything bothered her.

When Eva shut her eyes, a parade of colors danced and whirled behind them in vibrant smears as her mind worked at the speed of light. Every shred of her mental energy went to rapidly cataloging every detail of her time with Theo —the center of her thoughts, the source of her discontentment.

Organized every memory on her bookshelf.

Shut the flawed ones away in a locked chamber filled with darkness.

Memorized every expression.

Noted down every word.

Everything was in its place, separated by what she said and what she didn't. Things she had meant to say that had remained buried inside her for days, weeks, and months.

She had built her walls too high up.

And now she was trapped in them.

Tangled in herself.

Mutually assured destruction.

She took a deep breath. Then another. She counted each inhale like she'd done when she was in his arms. Whenever the swell of panic and emotions loomed larger than her will to subdue them. Eva focused on one empty spot in her mind and shut her eyes, sinking into a calmer physical and mental state that allowed her to become mindful of everything.

Her heart, oddly enough, was the loudest; it fought the hardest, destructed the most, and broke the hardest out of everything. Her brain was on the defense, protecting itself from being locked and shut, falling into a delusion which she had no control over.

It was fine.

Everything was fine.

This would pass too.