The room was too still—too quiet for someone who had just clawed her way out of the grave fate had prepared for her. Nyra sat on the edge of the bed after Damien left in Damien's suite, the mattress beneath her holding its breath like even it dared not move. The torn wedding dress clung to the chair like a curse, soaked in rain, sweat, and something far older. The white fabric, once pristine, now bore the bruises of the night: mud-streaked hems, ripped lace, shattered pearl buttons like tiny bones scattered across the floor. Her breath came in shallow bursts, not from exhaustion, but from the weight of remembering. Of knowing.
Outside, the city sprawled in a thousand golden fragments—light bleeding through skyscrapers, neon veins pulsing down its spine, alive with lies and oblivion. Cars moved like blood cells, people rushed to chase empty things, and yet here, in this glass-encased silence, it felt like the world had stopped breathing the moment she did. A strange echo of injustice, a funeral without a body. A woman resurrected, with no grave to show for it.
Her feet, bare and pale, touched the cold marble like they belonged to someone else. She didn't move them. Didn't dare. Every shift of muscle was a reminder: you survived. But the whisper that followed—the one stitched into her bones—was darker: you weren't supposed to. Her fingers curled into the sheets, knuckles whitening, nails digging into the expensive linen as if trying to hold on to something real. Something that wouldn't be taken from her again.
Nyra blinked once. Her reflection stared back at her from the window, smeared with rain and city light—haunted, hollow-eyed, lips swollen from biting back every scream she never got to unleash when she fell.
The night didn't end—it just unraveled.
Nyra eventually collapsed sideways onto the bed, not from rest, but surrender. Sleep wasn't a luxury she welcomed; it was a thief that came with trembling hands and a jagged mouth. Sleep didn't come easy. It never did now. She didn't change out of the bathing robe. She let the fabric twist around her like a noose. Her legs curled up, her arms wrapped around herself the way no one ever had. And the city—damn the city—kept glowing like nothing had happened. Like she hadn't died in silence. Like she hadn't been reborn in rage.
She stared at the ceiling until her eyes burned. Her heartbeat thumped against her temple, irregular and loud, and every time she blinked, she saw the cliff's edge again. The wind. The betrayal. Nolan's hand. Ava's smirk. And the sky swallowing her like a secret.
Outside, the city bled light through Damien's penthouse windows, but inside her, there was only darkness. Her breathing was shallow, her thoughts louder than any siren echoing below. She hadn't eaten. Her body was there, but her mind—her soul—was still hanging over that cliff.
And then finally, mercifully—or cruelly—her body gave in. She slipped into unconsciousness, not like a feather drifting down, but like a body falling through darkness, headfirst.
It happened again. Somewhere between 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m., sleep took her. But peace never came. Instead, the nightmare returned. It always did.
She was there again—on that cliff. Wind slicing across her face, salt from the sea biting her tongue. Nolan's hands were on her back, but they felt like cement, heavy and final. She turned her head. He smiled. That same smile he wore at their engagement party, warm on the surface but empty underneath. And Ava—Ava stood behind him, laughing. No sound. Just the motion, the glee, like this was all some inside joke she was never meant to survive.
She screamed before her eyes opened.
The echo of it cracked through the suite like a gunshot. Her body jolted upright in bed, soaked in sweat, heart trying to rip its way out of her chest. Hands clawing at the sheets, her throat raw from a scream that never left in time. She was falling—still falling—even though the bed was solid beneath her. She could feel the wind, hear the rush of air in her ears, see the rocks below. And then nothing—the blackness swallowing her whole before impact. Again. Just like before.
Her lungs begged for air. She gasped like a drowning girl. Her nails dug into her own skin—proof she was still here, still breathing, still alive when she shouldn't be. And that made it worse.
Because in the quiet aftermath, as her pulse began to slow, one truth echoed louder than the nightmare:
They didn't remember.
Not Nolan.
Not Ava.
Not her mother.
Not even the fucking world.
Only she did.
Only she ever would.
And this realization broke her. She sat curled in the corner of the bed again, knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped so tightly around her skin that it hurt. Her body trembled—not from cold, but from something deeper. Something rotten. The city buzzed and glimmered outside, alive in its own chaos, but inside this high-rise glass cage, she felt like a ghost. The lights, the luxury, the silence—it was all too much. Too clean. Too safe.
And she didn't feel safe. Not here. Not anywhere.
She pressed her forehead to her knees and exhaled, but the breath caught in her chest like a sob that couldn't be born. For a long time, she didn't move. She just stayed there, shrinking smaller and smaller while the walls loomed higher and higher, and it felt like the world was swallowing her whole.
Damien hadn't returned after that last look. And she was glad. She didn't want to be seen like this.
But god, she also didn't want to be alone.
Tears came. Uninvited. Angry. Bitter. She cried—not with the elegance of someone broken on screen, but the way real people do. Ugly. Soundless. Her throat raw. Her palms pressed against her eyes as if that could stop the memories from bleeding back in.
She cried for the version of her that died at the cliff's edge. For, the trust she once had in Nolan. For the sisterhood she thought she had with Ava. For the love she believed she was building. All of it—all of them—had cracked beneath her feet and dragged her down with them.
The bed was too large. The pillows too white. Everything smelled unfamiliar, like someone else's life.
Still sobbing, she crawled into the bed sideways and collapsed there, not under the covers but on top of them, arms still tight around herself. She buried her face in the pillow and wept until exhaustion stole the fight from her limbs.
Eventually, sleep came—not peace, not rest, just sleep. The kind that feels like drowning, slow and suffocating.
But even there, in the deepest parts of her mind, the nightmare waited. The cliff. The scream that never came. The look in Nolan's eyes. Ava's smile. Her body falling. Her soul ripping.
The moment of betrayal replayed itself again.
And again.
And again.