I watched her fall.
Watched her slip through my fingers.
Watched my world shatter into a thousand pieces, sinking, sinking, sinking-
And then I jumped.
There was no hesitation. No thought. No fucking logic. Just the singular, unshakable truth-home was where she was. Even if that meant the graveyard of the ocean.
The cold hit me like a bullet. A shock to the system. A violent, crushing force that wrapped its hands around my throat and squeezed. The weight of the fall punched the air from my lungs, and for a second-just a fleeting second-I thought: This was it. This was what she felt.
The drag pulled me under. The tide swallowed me whole. Salt and darkness curled around me, dragging me deeper, deeper, deeper-And I didn’t fight it.
I let it.
Because what was the point?
I wouldn’t be able to swim back. My leg was already fucked, my body battered and broken. Even if I somehow clawed my way back up that cliff, I wouldn’t survive this.
But like I cared?
Fuck this world. Fuck this life. Fuck me.
The waves slammed into me. The ocean wrapped its freezing hands around my ribs, my throat, pulling, claiming, erasing. The salt burned my eyes, blurred my vision. Somewhere above, muffled voices and chaos-all of it meant nothing.
Because she was in this abyss with me.
Somewhere in the dark, she was waiting. And I had to find her.
I forced my limbs to move, fighting against the unforgiving tide. The weight of my soaked clothes dragged me down. My lungs screamed for air, but my mind only screamed her name.
I reached- Blind. Desperate. Frantic.
This wasn’t death. This wasn’t a loss.
This was her.
My hands clawed through the water, but it was too dark, too endless. She was slipping further and further, and I couldn’t fucking reach her.
Something in my chest tore open. Raw. Agonizing. Animalistic.
She was supposed to be mine. Mine to protect. Mine to keep. Mine to fucking destroy if I had to-but never like this. Never gone.
No. No, no, no, NO.
I forced my limbs to move. Panic. Desperation. Something unnatural burning through me. But the water was a fucking monster, dragging me down, wrapping around me like a vice.
She was slipping. I was sinking.
And then-
I saw her.
A blur of fabric, of hair swirling in the currents, of fingers stretching toward nothing. She looked like a ghost. Like she was already half gone.
No.
NO.
I reached, my vision blurring. My lungs screamed. The cold ate at my skin and bit at my bones.
She wasn’t moving.
I barely felt my arm collide with her body as I yanked her toward me, crushing her against my chest. My fingers twisted into her clothes, digging into her ribs like I could hold her together, keep her here, keep her mine.
Her face was pale. Lips parted, unmoving.
She looked like a corpse.
A broken, delicate thing in the arms of a man who didn’t deserve to hold her. I didn’t know if my eyes burned because of the salty water or my own grief. Grief. Fuck. I was feeling. So many things that made me want to claw my throat.
My leg throbbed and all my energy drained.
I wouldn’t survive this. We wouldn’t.
I pressed my forehead against hers, gasping, choking, shaking.
Wake up, ptichka. Let me see you for the last time.
My throat burned. My eyes burned. Everything burned.
I never begged. Not for anything. Not for life, not for mercy, not for love.
But here I was, at the bottom of the ocean, cradling the only thing I had ever fucking wanted-begging.
My lungs clenched, the water rising. My body screamed for air, but what did I care? What did it matter?
If she wasn’t breathing, then I didn’t want to either.
If she was gone, I wasn’t leaving this fucking ocean without her.
I buried my face into her neck, ignoring the pressure crushing my ribs, the weight dragging us further into the abyss.
My lips pressed against her cold skin. Too fucking cold.
No. No, no, no. Please, God. Please.
I’ll worship. I’ll pray. I’ll kneel until my fucking knees shatter. I’ll carve your name into my skin if that’s what it takes. I’ll burn myself as an offering-just don’t take her away from me.
Not her. Please. Please, please.
Not my little bird. Not my Ptichka. Please.
Take me instead. Take my breath, my blood, my bones-gut me open, hollow me out, strip me of everything- just don’t take her. Don’t steal her from me.
I don’t know how to exist without her. I don’t want to.
I’ll trade. I swear it. Whatever the price, whatever the cost-I’ll pay it. Tear me apart piece by piece, curse me to eternal damnation-just give her back to me.
Please, God. Please. I will beg. I will break. I will be your fucking puppet if that’s what you want. Just don’t let this be the end.
I wanted to shake her, to scream at her, to beg her to just wake the fuck up. To open those eyes and look at me. To call me cruel. To call me hers. To call me anything.
But she wouldn’t.
And it was killing me. Tearing me apart limb by fucking limb.
My breath hitched, my chest heaved, and I pressed my forehead to hers like I could bleed my warmth into her. Like I could trade my life for hers. Take mine, take everything, just give her back to me.
I love you, too, ptichka.
The words weren’t enough.
Not even close.
Not for what she deserved.
Not for what I felt.
Not for how I’d destroy myself for her.
Beyond time. Beyond the stars. Beyond every fucking universe that ever dared to exist without you.
My throat clenched. My body shook. I was losing her. No-I already had.
And I couldn’t exist in a world where she wasn’t.
So I didn’t fight it. Didn’t fight the pull. Didn’t fight the way my arms locked tighter around her as the waves swallowed us whole.
I let go.
And let the ocean take me, too.
********
Did you ever feel calm?
Not the murderous kind. Not the kind that came after a kill, when the blood was still warm on your hands, and the screams faded into silence.
But the peaceful kind.
The kind men like me didn’t deserve.
Abominations like me didn’t deserve.
Mama?
Her hands were soft, and delicate, threading through my hair the way she used to when I was small enough to curl into her lap. She was smiling. Like she wasn’t looking at a monster.
Papa?
He was there too. But his eyes weren’t cold, weren’t filled with disdain. He was watching me-watching me with something that looked like pride. And that… that wasn’t real. That wasn’t how he ever looked at me.
None of this was real.
So why did it feel like home?
I looked down. My fingers curled around something small. A toy car. Red. Shiny. New.
Not the canary.
Not the little bird I’d skinned alive.
Mama should’ve been angry. She should’ve been horrified. She should’ve screamed. But she only smiled, pressing the toy into my palm like it was a gift like she was trying to distract me from something dark and ugly inside me.
I was six. I am six.
I was playing.
Krystina?
My head turned sharply. She was there, but too small. A child. Laughing, running, brown hair bouncing as she chased after Anya.
And Anya-she was young too. Green-eyed. Unscarred. Untouched by the weight of our name, by the cruelty written into our blood.
Beside them was Zayne, my little brother playing and talking. Speaking. Fuck, I wanted to hear his voice more.
But they weren’t supposed to be children. None of us were.
Something was wrong. Something was slipping.
The scene blurred at the edges, turning hazy, dreamlike, and false.
And then-
The laughter stopped.
Mama’s hand, warm in my hair, went cold.
Papa’s gaze turned hollow, void-like.
Krystina and Anya stopped running. Stopped breathing.
Zayne was choking. I tried reaching for him but he looked at me with bloodshot eyes.
The toy car slipped from my grip, hitting the floor with a hollow thud.
And the world-
The world went dark.
Darkness.
Thick, suffocating. Pressing into my ribs, curling around my throat like a noose.
I couldn’t move.
I tried, but-nothing.
Was I still sinking? Or had I already drowned?
I didn’t know. I didn’t know.
There was something in my chest. A weight. A crushing, unbearable weight. Like hands pressing down, like something trying to crawl inside me and rip me open from the inside out. Breath. I needed to-
I inhaled-water.
Cold, ruthless. Pouring into my lungs like liquid death. I tried to cough, tried to choke, but it wouldn’t leave. It was inside me, dragging me deeper.
I couldn’t-
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t feel anything except the unbearable pull of nothingness.
But there was something else. Sound.
Distant. Warped. Muffled like I was hearing the world from the bottom of the ocean.
Screaming.
Someone was screaming.
A voice-raw, shattered, breaking apart at the seams. I knew that voice. Why did I know that voice?
Someone crying. Desperate. Sobbing like their world was ending.
Was it mine?
Was it hers?
Ptichka?
I tried to reach for her. My hands wouldn’t move.
Please, baby, I can’t see you. Where are you?
I tried to open my eyes. Nothing.
A blinding white light flashed behind my lids, then-
Pain.
Unholy. Like a thousand volts of lightning ripping through my body, frying every nerve.
My back arched. A scream tore from my throat. Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe I was just dreaming.
Another shock.
My muscles seized, my body convulsing against something hard, something solid beneath me. Not water. Not the ocean.
I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t dead.
I wanted to be.
Because if I wasn’t dead, then where the fuck was she?
Another scream.
I couldn’t tell if it was mine anymore.
Maybe I was still at the bottom of the ocean. Maybe this was hell. Maybe this was what I deserved.
I was a little boy again. Small. Weak. Terrified.
Mama? Papa?
Why weren’t they looking at me anymore?
Why was the toy car covered in red?
Why was the canary still screaming?
I tried to move, but hands-so many hands-held me down, pressing into my chest, my arms, my skull.
A voice, sharp and urgent-“Again!”
And then-
More pain.
Searing, violent, tearing me apart at the seams. Like death was trying to take me, and the world was trying to drag me back.
I wanted to let go.
I wanted to go back.
Back to her.
Back to the ocean.
Back to the quiet, where love had destroyed us, where nothing hurt anymore.
But they wouldn’t let me.
The hands wouldn’t let me.
And the screaming-
The screaming wouldn’t stop.