Of one thing Neva is sure, even as she slips in and out of consciousness,
sometimes catching a faint glimpse of light rippling through the water,
only to realize it is the bioluminescence etched into the marine creatures before vanishing into the darkness and leaving her numb to the freezing cold of the ocean floor:
that the things inside her womb have saws for teeth and sickles for nails, eating and gnawing at her from within until they eventually come out.
Another movement stirs inside her, and if she yields deeper into the sensation, it threatens to wring her mind out with a rhythmic pulse, beating in time with her own heartbeat, growing increasingly unsettling.
If Rhett finds her, would he even want her anymore?
For now, she's plagued by evil, her blood polluted by Ishmael and the unseen presences he sired.
Two.
Not one.
But two.
No. It wouldn't stop her husband from loving her.
Nothing in this world would stop him from loving her.
For she knows him. She knows him like she knows herself.
Her fingers glide over the curve of her swollen belly in a feather-light motion,
its heaviness echoing the time when she was about six months pregnant with her son.
She is uncertain how many seasons have passed since she was torn away from her family, from a place where everything was wonderful and perfect.
Now, it feels like ages ago since she last remembers being washed in love's sacred glow,
the past ebbing away into motes as she gradually grows accustomed to the darkness.
Sometimes, she's an ephemeral illusion carved into this reality.
Sometimes, verity haunts her so raw that she wishes herself dead, if only to escape.
Sometimes, she's alright, decaying in this grave they call a bed.
Sometimes, she's a shell, hollow without a soul, grieving her life and all those entangled with hers.
Her days toil by in bleary hues of colour as her world swims in erratic shapes of a dice,
sihouettes floating around the room, offering her food, water, books, canvases, and paints, teasing her with hope before leaving her forlorn and envious as they drift in and out with such carefreeness.
If she refuses any of the pleasures bestowed upon her, Ishmael's annoyance cruelly tears the
blinds from her eyes, and only when she bleeds does she feel, for a heartbeat, the most alive.
But something happened today.
Fluroscent lights fell upon the shards of glass until they glimmer, glass that a maid unwittingly broke while serving her lunch.
After forever of being constantly watched and having even her tiniest movements mistrusted,
hope finally found its way to her once more.
And hope, sparking within the shadowed space where she might almost trick herself into existing, grows into an impossibility to remain still within the darkness, for the eyes perceive only the light.
As the servant walked out of the room to fetch the cleaning supplies, she wrapped a shard in a handkerchief and kept it safely beneath her pillow, careful not to put pressure on it lest she break it.
From that moment, she felt the frayed threads of her senses coat with the glue of faith, and her mind opened to the firm possibility of a ladder out of this chasm.
Anxious as she was about what form the ruse to her freedom would pertain, she could never have imagined looking forward to his arrival as she did today. This time, though, she would be more careful.
She knew she couldn't harm him, and even if she did, it wouldn't be long before his guards found her.
But she thought she knew his weakness perfectly.
Almost forgotten was the horror his presence stirred amidst her unrelaxed, nervous eagerness throughout the afternoon, which slowly elapsed into evening, until he finally showed up in the late hours after whatever furtive business had occupied him all day.
Yet, it was as if all the blooming anticipation and possibility withered away the moment his unemotional gaze fell upon her,
before he scrutinized her, asking how her day had gone, to which she responded with silence.
Then, without pushing her further, he suited himself to a bath, and she, heart hammering at the thought that he had somehow unravelled her scheme, finally found closure to her doubts,
regaining herself enough to collude in her mind all the ways which she believed would succeed.
Yet her limbs turned to water and her courage burned to ashes when he stepped out of the bathroom and sought to take from her again.
At that duration of unbearable torment, she would always force herself to flee from this flesh, far away to where love breathes and Eden still exists, until the violence becomes a distant thunder of war.
For if she cannot, for so occasionally the body becomes an enemy to the mind and soul, her foot slips from the bank of crawling maggots, and she drowns into a sonorous pool of blood.
After he had been done with her, she waited as he reclined beside her and fell asleep, shivering beneath the brutality and the terror of what might become of her if her plan did not go as she hoped.
One last time, she crystallizes the conviction in her mind.
This was the one last night, and he could never touch her again.
She prayed through it all, unaware of how many hours had passed, even though she could no longer hear Him or understand His plan for her.
But tonight, she cannot let the chance slip away.
Now, she watches as he sleeps, her hand clammy around the shard, its jagged edges cutting into her skin until blood trickles onto the white sheets.
The sting of the wound is a mild dilution to her gyre of thoughts, the possibilities ever churning as she revises them, until all her senses narrow down when his eyelids twitch,
her very wish, yet a jinx as his eyes slowly open.
No surprise stirs in his gaze even as she presses the shard against her wrist.
This ought to frighten her, but she expected it.
But if he sees that she's not jesting around and means it this time, his care for his unborn children will override his cool disappointment in her.
"What are you doing?" His voice comes groggy with sleep.
Her breath catches as a sharp sting tears through her nerves, the shard slicing into her skin.
He rises at once, panic ripping through his blanked expression as he lunges for her.
"Don't!" She raises the shard to her neck, freezing him mid-motion.
Blood gushes from her wrist, dribbling onto the sheets,
drops of red blooming across the white sheets.
His face turns dark. "What is wrong with you?"
"If I can't have freedom," she says, "then you won't have your children either."
Carefully, he reaches out. "Give it to me."
Her gaze remains tethered to his as she climbs off the bed. "No."
"Neva," he says, a warning laced through his tone. "Give it to me."
A drop of blood trickles down her collarbone as the shard breaks her skin, her other hand closing over her fist as she begins to tremble. "No."
"Please," he whispers, inching toward her with measured steps. "Put it down."
She steps backward, her pulse thrumming so violently she can feel her arteries palpitate. "Don't come closer."
Agitation bordering on anger roughens his voice. "Why do you have to make everything harder?"
"I want to go home," she says. "I just want to go home."
"This is your home." He takes a step closer. "I'm your husband. Where else do you have to be?"
"Don't!" she shouts, stumbling backward. "Don't come closer."
He's not her husband. He's not! He's not! He's not!
The ring around her fourth finger is made of thorns that tears at her skin, which he slid onto her finger after forcing her to sign some papers that would somehow prevent his children from being bastards.
Her true wedding band has long been removed, and she doesn't know what he has done with it. But her husband is alive, and as much as he would like to prove otherwise, this marriage is nothing but void rules etched into tiered letters, inked with carnage.
"You've gone completely mad," he says.
"If I die," she whispers,
struggling to keep herself upright as the floor beneath her bare feet sways. "You'll lose them, too."
"Stubborn, selfish, stupid woman," he spits, repulsion dripping from his tone. "What kind of mother tries to kill their own children?"
"I'm not their mother…" Nausea rises into her throat from the depths of her abhorrence for the monstrous things growing inside her as she blindly repeats her denial. "I'm not! I'm not! I'm not! Stop saying that!"
Out of the blue, a breathless revelation slams into her.
He will never allow it.
He will never stop until he destroys everything good that remains within her.
She has come too far, and it's impossible even to imagine remaining imprisoned within these same blue walls forever, subjected to endless rituals of torture until she can take no more.
No. She's had enough. She's waited enough.
Freedom, one way or the other, she will have it.
She can't let her husband be humiliated like that anymore. She can't let them strip away the
last shreds of faith in her before she becomes one with him, completely lost in this pandemonium.
So, with a prayer for forgiveness and her chest heaving, she raises the shard toward her neck.
"He's alive," he says.
She doesn't know if she's breathing anymore.
"He's been searching for you," he continues, walking toward her. "I've been lying to you all this time."
Maybe she isn't, or perhaps the world is offering her the sweetest lie she has ever heard to keep her chained within her own flesh until she completely loses herself.
Maybe she truly is dead, a spirit in the corner of the room, watching as she stands lifelessly while Ishmael pries her fingers away from the shard.
While the wind like shadows titter at her after she had shattered her bond with her husband, her faith in her Father, and a chance at a redeemed tomorrow.
She knew it. She knew it.
She knew he was alive.
Her soul had sung it to her even in the deepest of her sorrows.
He wipes a tear away from her cheek. "Since you're suffering almost to the point of wanting to die,"
he says, "we'll do this. We'll remove all the memories that bring you so much pain."
She searches for any trick or lie in his eyes, but all she finds is a steady, undisguised resolve.
"We'll rewrite everything." He gently tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
"We'll begin again, you, me, and our children."
Blackness creeps into the corners of her vision, bizarre, worm-like translucent shapes
appearing when a drop of watercolor dilutes them, stirring and shrinking with each slow blink.
Her legs give way beneath her before he steadies her, and,
sinking somewhere deep into herself, she has the sensation of being lifted and carried to the bed.
All the while, she hears herself begging for his forgiveness.
Like a child, she promises she won't do it again.
In the fluroscent glow of the room, the white ceiling shifts and ripples above her as he leaves her side.
Chills crawl over her entire body at the invisible things whirling above her, merging into a single, meandering demonic spectre.
A smothering heaviness presses against her chest as she feels so exposed and unprotected.
As they inch closer, she wills herself to get up, to run, to find somewhere, someone, safe.
But she remains frozen.
Wide mouth open into an endless void as they close into her face, ready to devour her until nothing is left.
Inside, she cries out to her husband, to her Father.
But only silence answers her. While the vile things begin by swallowing her head, working their way down her neck and shoulders, and all that remains is the unbreathable, impenetrable blackness.