Break me gently
I didn't mean to slip into his head.
One second I was asleep.
The next
I wasn't in the cabin anymore.
I was standing in blood.
His memory.
His past.
A ruin of a house still smoking, roof torn open like a scream. The sky was red, not with sunset, but with fire. Magic.
And at the center of it
A boy.
Small. Barefoot. Hands trembling.
Kael.
Maybe ten. Maybe younger.
His knees hit the ground beside two broken bodies.
His mother and father.
Still.
Black veins spread across their skin like curses. Their faces frozen in expressions that weren't peaceful. They were afraid.
"No," he whispered. Over and over.
His little fingers touched her face, but it didn't change anything.
Didn't bring her back.
"Wake up," he begged. "Please. Wake up. I...didn't mean to"
The air cracked.
Something inside him split.
And the world answered.
It wasn't a scream.
It was a detonation.
Red light erupted from his chest. A ring of pure, violent emotion. Magic with no mercy.
The walls caved in. The trees shattered. The earth tore open.
And the boy just knelt there, screaming into the ash.
"Please—I'm sorry—I didn't mean it—I didn't"
"You did."
The voice came from behind me.
I turned.
It was Kael.
Older. Present.
Watching his own memory play like a curse on loop.
He didn't look at me.
"You weren't supposed to see this," he said.
"I didn't mean to"
"I don't let people in here."
I stepped toward him, but the world convulsed.
The ash rose. The bodies disappeared.
Only the pain remained.
"You loved them," I whispered.
"Too much."
"They tried to help you."
"They died for it."
Silence.
He looked at me then.
And gods, Grace.
He looked broken.
"I destroyed them. With one feeling."
"No," I said. "The world destroyed them. You were just a child."
"Exactly."
He closed the distance between us.
Put a hand over my chest.
"I was a child. And now you're the weapon."
I felt it then.
All of it.
His guilt.
His rage.
His utter belief that no one could ever love him without dying for it.
"I see you," I whispered. "I feel you."
"No," he said. "You carry me."
And the world went black.
I woke up in his arms.
Shaking. Sobbing.
I didn't remember crying.
But his shirt was soaked with tears.
My hands clutched his back like I'd been drowning.
His voice was hoarse when he whispered, "It's okay. You're safe. It's just me."
I pressed my face against his neck.
"You were just a boy."
"I'm still him," he said. "Just bigger. Just louder."
"No," I whispered. "Now you're not alone."
His arms tightened.
And for the first time, he held me like he needed it more than I did.