Chapter 52: The Ice in the ashes

At first, the sensation wasn't pain. It was absence. A vast, echoing emptiness where my heart had been savagely excavated. I woke from a sleep that had not been an escape, only a replay of sounds, gasps, groans, the rhythmic creak of betrayal amplified in the dark of my brain. My eyes opened on the unfamiliar, oppressive greyness of the guest room. Specks of dust danced in a thin shaft of weak morning sunlight piercing a crack in the heavy curtains. My body was shattered, rigid, aching, chilled to the marrow. Every breath grated painfully against my ribs.

The silence was profound. Oppressive. Thick with the ghosts of night. It weighed upon me, a tangible pressure on my chest. I strained my ears, half-hoping, half-fearing the echo of that moan, that laugh. Nothing. Nothing but the wild thudding of my own heartbeat in my eardrums. My bed. My room. The memories came flooding back, vivid and sickening. The cheap, sweet perfume she'd worn seemed to have seeped into the walls themselves, a