Chapter Six – Thirst
I stopped hearing the pages.
No more flipping.
No more humming.
No more faint rustle that shouldn't have existed in the first place.
Just a sudden, violent silence that sucked the air out of my lungs so fast it hurt. It was the kind of silence that had weight—heavy, smothering, like a hand clamping over my mouth and nose.
I didn't even have time to scream.
The world blinked.
And then—I wasn't in my room.
I didn't remember standing up.
I didn't remember walking.
I didn't remember opening a door, or windows, or even my eyes.
But I was somewhere else. Somewhere that smelled like wet bark and cold earth. Somewhere that felt familiar—not because I had been there, but because I had written about it. Or dreamed it. Or feared it.
A forest stretched around me, its trees unnaturally tall, curved inward like ribs of some massive dead animal. Their shadows folded over each other, swallowing whatever light existed. The air was damp, thick enough that every inhale felt like dragging fog into my lungs. Something sticky clung to my feet.
I looked down.
Mud. Wet mud clinging to my skin, heavy, cold, suffocating.
But that wasn't the worst part.
That's when I realized—
I was naked.
Completely, stupidly, humiliatingly naked.
Bare skin. Bare everything.
No clothes. No jewelry. No hair tie. Not even the familiar weight of my bracelet.
I wrapped my arms around my chest instinctively, but it didn't stop the cold from slicing into me or the panic from curling tight under my ribs.
"What… what is going on?" My voice cracked. It didn't even sound like me.
My hands were shaking. My legs were shaking. Even my teeth were trembling inside my skull. I held my palms up, staring at them, and a wave of nausea rolled through me. They didn't feel like mine. They didn't even look like mine. They were too pale, too thin, too… drained.
My throat burned.
Not normal thirst—this was worse.
Much worse.
A deep, clawing dryness dug into my throat, scraping down my chest, settling like hot dust in my lungs. I swallowed and felt nothing. No relief. No moisture. Only fire.
My lips trembled. My tongue felt like sandpaper scraping my teeth. My body shook violently as if trying to wring water from itself.
Thirst.
A deep, aching, bone-dry thirst like I hadn't had water in days. Maybe weeks. My vision blurred at the edges as if my body was shutting down one sense at a time.
I forced myself to step forward.
Immediate regret shot through me like lightning.
Pain exploded across the soles of my feet. Sharp, screaming pain. I stumbled, nearly falling, and when I looked down, I almost gagged.
Blisters.
Red, raw, swollen blisters covering my feet. Some had burst. Some were stretched tight, shiny with fluid. Some were cracked open and leaking blood. My stomach turned. I stepped back instinctively—and the pain made my eyes water.
"Fuck… fuck my life." My breath hitched, shallow, uneven. "What the hell is happening?"
The forest didn't answer. It just… pressed in.
Every step I took, the trees seemed to bend closer, tightening like a hand around my neck. The air grew colder with each minute, freezing against my bare skin. My heart hammered against my ribs—not just from fear but from something else, something crawling inside my bones, something that felt almost… predestined.
Still, I walked.
Because what else could I do? Stand there naked until something in the shadows ate me? No.
No way.
The forest stretched endlessly in every direction, but somehow—somehow—I felt pulled toward the right. As if invisible fingers were guiding me. As if something already knew the path I needed to take, even though I didn't.
My breathing turned ragged. My knees buckled every few steps. My vision pulsed. The world spun a little each time I blinked.
I dragged myself forward, hugging my arms around my chest, shivering even though the cold wasn't natural. It wasn't normal air. It didn't feel like wind or temperature. It felt like something breathing against my skin.
Then I saw it.
A clearing.
A break in the suffocating trees. A slice of pale gray sky peeking through. My legs carried me there before my brain caught up, desperate for anything that wasn't darkness and shadows pressing in on me.
And beyond the clearing—
A road.
A real road.
Smooth asphalt.
Painted lines.
Signs I recognized.
Civilization.
My breath burst out of me in a shaky exhale that nearly became a sob.
Houses.
Cars.
People walking.
Normal. So painfully normal.
But I was naked.
My stomach dropped into my feet.
They would think I was mad. Lost. Insane. A lunatic wandering out of the woods like some deranged escapee. Shame crawled all over me like invisible insects. I wrapped my arms tighter around myself, trying to cover what little I could, but it barely helped. Panic rose like a tide.
"How did I get here?" My voice cracked, softer this time. Terrified. Small. "I… I was in my bed. I remember being in bed."
I forced myself to think—to remember.
I was lying down.
I felt heavy.
The air felt wrong.
I heard humming.
Then silence.
Then—
Darkness.
And then…
"Sleep?" I whispered. "Did I fall asleep?"
But no.
No, that didn't feel right.
This didn't feel like a dream.
This felt sharp. Too sharp.
Dreams don't blister your feet.
Dreams don't punish you with thirst that feels like death.
Dreams don't leave you naked in a forest with no memory of how you got there.
Was this some kind of prank?
A kidnapping?
A hallucination?
Some stupid nightmare where you think you're awake but you're not?
Or—my stomach twisted—
Was it punishment?
My breathing quickened. My heart felt like it was punching through my chest. I needed to get out of the open before someone saw me. I needed to find help. I needed to understand what the hell was happening to me.
I needed anything.
I stepped onto the asphalt, flinching as my blistered feet screamed with every movement. Tears prickled my eyes. The road felt too hot and too cold at the same time, like it didn't belong to this world.
I staggered forward.
"Stop! Stop!" I shouted, waving my arms at the nearest car like a desperate idiot.
The car swerved violently, horn blaring. Tires screeched across the asphalt, the sound tearing through the silence like metal on metal. It stopped inches—literally inches—from slamming into me.
I froze.
Time froze.
The world spun in slow motion. The car. The driver's wide eyes. The flashing reflection of light. The cold wind hitting my skin. The taste of iron in my mouth.
Then everything sped up.
Voices. Confused. Angry. Scared.
Running footsteps.
Shouts I couldn't understand.
My knees buckled.
The edges of my vision darkened, creeping inward like spilled ink. My head felt too light. My limbs felt too heavy. My throat burned.
Something felt wrong.
Deeply wrong.
Not just the place.
Not just the nakedness.
Not just the thirst or pain.
Something inside me felt wrong.
"Something… doesn't feel… right…" I muttered. The words barely crawled out of me.
The sky twisted above me, bending unnaturally, curling at the edges like wet paper placed over flame. The world rippled. Warped. Folded.
I felt myself falling.
Weightless.
Cold.
Empty.
The last thing I saw was the sky collapsing into itself like ink swirling in water.
And then—
Nothing.