When the room went dark, she heard her name.


"Lidia," his voice purred, echoed through the dark. "My dear Lidia.”


Something pulled to her, called to her, magnetic and all-consuming. Her body rushed, heart pacing in adrenaline, as he leaned in closer, closer, closer, watching her with those beautiful gray eyes. A finger traced down a loose strand of her hair. She shivered, letting the barest kiss of worry run down her spine.


It was fiery. It was something love couldn’t contain. It was desire, and she had let herself become a very slave of it.


“Come back to me, Lidia,” he whispered, hands skimming the ropes, through the fabric of her clothes. “Come back to me.”


Her eyelashes fluttered. She let out a soft sigh.


And then:

 

“Come back to me, Lidia. Come to where you belong. Die, as you should’ve.”


Something snapped. Something terrifyingly consuming. Something shattered within her and broke apart.


No.

  

“Stop,” she wanted to shout, beg. Yet her mouth was bolted shut, lips held together by iron. “Stop it!”


“Come back to me.”


When had he gotten a match? When had he lit it? When had the darkness suddenly perished, pierced by the jarring light of a fire?


“Come back to me, Lidia.”


No.


Only when the barest spark of the flame met the leather of the rope did the chains on her mouth finally break. Only when it engulfed her did she finally scream, and scream, and scream, never to be heard by anyone except the one who had stolen her.


By the one who had thieved the forbidden fruit.


By the one who had ruined me.


By the one who had lied to me, loved me, and murdered me.


He was going to kill her, again and again and again, and she would never learn her lesson. She would always be too blind to cast an eye on the consequences. She would always be the innocent, foolish lamb.


She would always be the victim.


“No.”


The word escapes my lips in a hushed, frenzied gasp. Sweat has beaded down my back in glistening, cold streams. My blanket has been thrown off me, forgotten, abandoned on the side of my bed.


She would always be the defenseless one.


“No.”


She would always be—


“NO!”


I scream. My voice is raw, ragged, worn by surviving years of terror. Bruises of past injuries adorn every word, and, when I speak, it cuts like glass.


The sun has already made its ascent up in the sky, light pouring through my bedroom windows greedily. My alarm clock rings, once, twice, three times, before my fingers clumsily climb onto its buttons and manage to shut it off.


Get up, Lidia. This isn’t the first nightmare you’ve had.


It’s far from it. 362 consecutive visions of pain, torture, of love so hurtful it carved a hole into my heart, and nothing has changed. My therapist thinks I’m lying. My mother offered me drugs.


Wake up.


Because even if I do stay cocooned in those white sheets, trembling, too afraid to force myself out of my bed, one thing remains the same. One thing I’ve hidden all these years. One thing that’s been haunting me, taunting my every dream, plaguing my mind from Hell.


He isn’t the reason for my nightmares.


I am.


Because I have a secret. I’ve killed someone before. I enjoyed it. And I never wanted it to happen.



© xfelicia12 10/9/2025