Darkness wrapped around me like a second skin. I lay on the cold, unforgiving metal floor, staring blankly at the ceiling that never changed. The dim lights flickered sometimes, as if mocking the flicker of life left inside me. I wasn't sure how many days had passed since I was captured. Time had no meaning here. Hunger didn't even feel like hunger anymore—it was just a dull ache, like everything else inside me.
Sleep came in fragments, haunted and broken. And when it did, so did the dream.
It always began with wolves.
Their eyes glowed like dying stars, their teeth bared—not in threat, but in warning. They stood at the edge of a burning forest, unmoving, regal, surrounded by smoke and cinders. The trees groaned as they fell, flames licking the sky like bloodied tongues. I would run—always run—but the wolves never chased. They simply watched. Like they were waiting for me to understand something I couldn't grasp.
In one of the dreams, the largest wolf stepped forward. Its fur shimmered like molten silver, and when it opened its mouth, it spoke my name.
"Elira…"
I woke with a gasp, my body drenched in sweat. My skin burned as if the fire from the dream had touched me for real. My breath came in short, shallow bursts. I was feverish, dizzy. Every bone in my body ached. I curled into myself on the floor, shivering and sweltering all at once.
I wanted to call out.
For Selena. For Valen.
For someone.
But no one was coming.
They were gone.
And the truth of that sat on my chest like a weight I couldn't lift. I remembered how Selena would press cool cloths against my forehead when I was sick, humming softly. How Valen would light a fire and stay up all night, watching over me like a hawk. Their love was fierce. Unbreakable. And now it was ash.
I pulled my knees to my chest and pressed my face into them. I was shaking—part fever, part sorrow.
I missed them so much it felt like a physical wound. It hurt to breathe.
It hurt to exist.
It hurt so bad that I began to wish for death.
How had everything vanished so quickly? One moment I was carrying a basket of fruit, humming in the sun—and now I was here, in this pit of metal and silence, surrounded by strangers who didn't care if I lived or died.
And the worst part?
I survived.
Why?
Why did I live when Valen and Selena didn't?
Why did I get to crawl through that tunnel, scrape my arms and knees raw, and run from the fire—while they stayed behind to die?
I should've stayed.
It should have been one of them, Valen or Selena who survived. They would have known what to do. Yet I survived they sacrificed their life for a useless pawn like myself.
Tears came slow and silent, slipping down my cheeks like traitors. I hadn't cried properly since the hatch caved in. I had held it in, clenched it like a blade inside me. But now it bled.
Every breath hurt. Every second stretched like punishment.
I cursed them.
Not just the soldiers, not just the drones, not just the Ukrainians and Russians who turned their power against us. No.
I cursed everything.
The treaties. The governments. The lies. The banners they flew and the promises they made. I cursed every word they ever spoke about peace and unity and protection.
They had never meant to save us. We were pawns. Collateral.
I cursed the air I was still breathing.
I cursed myself.
For being naïve. For believing in heroes. For trusting people who wore badges and called themselves allies.
For not dying when I should have.
I dug my nails into my arms, wanting to feel something real. Something that made sense. Pain at least felt honest.
I was alone in the truest, most unbearable sense of the word. Alone in my grief. Alone in my guilt.
Hope was a joke. A cruel one.
And yet… in the middle of that silence, in the pit of that despair, a memory stirred.
It was faint. Barely a whisper.
Valen's voice.
Calm. Soft. From a better time.
We were by the river. I was maybe ten, throwing stones into the water.
"Even fire," he said, "leaves something behind. Ashes. And sometimes… that's all a forest needs to grow again."
I almost scoffed at the memory. What did ashes matter now?
But the words wouldn't let go.
I lay there, exhausted, the fever still licking at my skin. My eyes burned, my lips cracked, and my stomach twisted with hunger. But the memory lingered.
Something about it… held me.
It didn't erase the grief. It didn't fix anything. But it was a thread. Fragile. Thin. Almost invisible.
But it was something.
Maybe I hadn't survived because I was lucky.
Maybe I was meant to remember.
To carry the ashes.
And maybe, just maybe…
To grow something from them.
A glimmer flickered inside me—so faint it could've been a lie. But it was enough to keep breathing. Enough to uncurl my fists. Enough to whisper one word to the dark:
"Still…"
I was still here.
And maybe that meant something.