"No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories."
— Haruki Murakami
Part One: Mara
I woke to heat surging through my veins. It spread fast, like lava mapping its way through my body, crawling through every artery, until there wasn't any place that didn't feel like it was burning from the inside out.
My ears filled with a high-pitched whirring, constant and unnerving. It vibrated through me, settling into my bones until I couldn't tell where the sound ended and I began.
Somewhere above me, a machine spun with mechanical fury. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it—working, relentless, like it had a purpose and I was it.
I tried to move but it was impossible.
My arms were strapped down so tight, I could feel the pressure even through the numbness creeping into my skin.
I tried to speak. My throat tightened, but no sound came out.
Pull it together, Mara. What do you remember?
My thoughts floated up slowly, like they had to fight through whatever else was happening inside my head.
I didn't know where I was. Everything was a blur.
A hospital, maybe.
That made sense. It had to be. The machines, the straps, the way my body didn't feel like mine. Maybe I'd been in an accident. Maybe this was anesthesia wearing off, my brain scrambling to catch up with reality.
But hospitals didn't feel like this.
Hospitals didn't burn you alive from the inside.
My stomach twisted, nausea rolling through me in slow, violent waves. It felt like I'd swallowed something toxic, something my body was trying and failing to reject. The taste crept up my throat, metallic and bitter.
My heart pounded hard enough that I could feel it in my head, each beat slamming against my skull in rhythm with the machine above me.
My lungs struggled.
Each breath came shallow and uneven, like I was pulling air through water, like something was pressing down on my chest and refusing to let go. I gasped, the sound involuntarily breaking out of me. But it disappeared under the noise of the machine.
I'm dying.
The thought didn't feel like panic. It just felt...certain, like a quiet realization slipping into place.
Barely eighteen and I'm dying.
Was this what it felt like?
To suffocate inside your own body?
To drown without water?
Cold crept in at the edges. Into my fingers, my toes, the tip of my nose. It moved slowly, steadily, like something patient that knew it didn't need to rush.
My mind blurred.
Not completely.
Not yet.
Something started to surface.
Alaina laughing. That was the first thing. Not a full memory. Just the sound of it. Bright and sudden, the kind of laugh that made people turn without meaning to.
We were sitting on her bedroom floor. She had one of her socks half-on, half-off, and she was trying to kick it at me like it was some kind of projectile weapon.
"You're cheating," I'd said, laughing even as I tried to block it.
"I'm improvising," she shot back, grinning.
The sock hit me in the shoulder anyway.
Then I threw a pillow at her.
The memory slipped and another took its place.
I was sitting alone at the school cafeteria, the new girl, staring down at my tray.
She sat down across from me like it was the most natural thing in the world.
That was the beginning.
But this was the end.
The heat surged again, dragging me back.
My body arched against the restraints, a broken attempt at movement that went nowhere. My fingers twitched, barely, the sensation distant.
I wanted to stay in those memories.
I didn't want to come back here.
"I'm so sorry, Alaina," I tried to say.
I don't think it came out.
The whirring grew louder.
Somewhere deep down, a voice inside me whispered, telling me I should hold on. But, exhaustion was winning. All I wanted was for it all to end—the pain, the suffering—everything.
I drifted. Then I heard his voice. Calm and clear, almost soothing amid the chaos.
"What you're feeling now are the nanoparticles I injected you with being rapidly heated by lasers."
The words cut through the haze.
This wasn't a hospital.
This wasn't an accident.
Panic tried to rise, but it didn't have enough strength to fully form. A fleeting attempt, weak against the weight of everything else happening inside me.
Nanoparticles.
Lasers.
My mind tried to grab onto the meaning, but it slipped, dissolving before it could settle.
I drifted again.
The heat shifted, fading at the edges for just a second, replaced by something almost...comforting.
Like lying in sunlight next to someone who made everything feel easier without trying.
Alaina had her eyes half-closed, hands tucked behind her head.
"What do you think happens after?" I asked. "Like...heaven?"
She smiled and said, "Maybe it's just more of this. But without being scared it's going to end."
"More of this?"
She opened her eyes and looked at me.
"Yeah. Being with your best friend."
The memory lingered longer than the others. Like it didn't want to let go.
Then cold slammed into me.
My body convulsed, muscles seizing hard enough that I felt it down to my bones. My teeth chattered uncontrollably, the shift from heat to cold so extreme it felt like my body was cracking under it.
"I added a sprinkle or two of cyanide to your IV," the voice continued, almost conversational. "Didn't think you would mind."
The words didn't fully register.
But the effect did.
Pain exploded outward from my chest. It spread fast, flooding my limbs, igniting every nerve ending at once.
My stomach clenched hard, spasming violently as nausea surged up my throat. I gagged, choking on nothing, the taste of metal stronger now, coating everything.
My vision blurred.
Darkness crept in at the edges, shadows stretching and shifting like something alive.
I couldn't focus.
My body was shutting down.
I could feel it now in a way that went beyond pain.
My limbs were distant and unresponsive.
The cold had reached deeper, settling into my core.
"It shouldn't be long now until you experience multi-organ failure," the voice said, calm and certain, like he was describing the weather.
I drifted again, the world slipping further out of reach.
The machine.
The pain.
Even the fear.
All of it fading.
The last thing I felt was the cold.
Not the pain anymore.
Just...quiet.
And underneath it, a final thought.
Hold on.
I didn't know if it was my voice or hers. Or something else entirely.
But I held onto it for as long as I could.
Then everything went dark.