Chapter 23: Octavia - Pack of Mine

I fade in and out of consciousness often, but it’s impossible to tell how much time has actually passed. When I’m fortunate enough to be awake, I get small glances of the room I’m locked in.

The walls are white and everything is soft – padded furniture, an open shower with no curtain or door. I’m served food on a cardboard tray with no utensils, and the time staff spends in the room is limited.

I’m about 90% sure I’m in a psychiatric wing.

Screaming “They’re coming to kill me” probably wasn’t the best choice of words in a hospital, but in their defense, I was also losing my fucking mind, so…

Most days I can’t even finish my dinner before they knock me out again. I fight them every time they try – my dreams aren’t much better than my reality right now, both of them equally terrifying.

I just don’t want to do this anymore.

I daydream of the life I used to have, before I met the boys.

I daydream of smoking cigarettes in the back of the bar, laughing with my regulars and Connor, going for long drives in my car.

I daydream of being in nature, in the sunlight, having my freedom back.

Even if I escaped here, I would be a prisoner again. I’ll always be a threat, a tool even, to the boys. They’ll keep me trapped forever, and I refuse to be kept in a box, even if it’s as pretty as their residence.

My fantasy of a tall, dark and handsome man in our house in the woods didn’t include me living underneath it in a basement, being forced to research werewolf curse unbindings and getting manipulated left and right by three impossibly handsome men.

My thoughts quickly overwhelm me and I start to pull at the roots of my hair, attempting to ground myself. It doesn’t take long for the nurses that watch me all day and night to notice that I’m spiraling. I hear the door creak open and it sounds just like the door of the basement of the mansion.

They’re going to kill me to save themselves.

I’m nothing to them, am I? Just an item they would keep around for months, hoping I’d be useful one day.

I’m an object to them.

I’m not even human.

My fantasy comes crashing around me once again, making me realize how utterly fucked my real life is right now.

Is it even real? Did I make up the whole thing and this is just some bad dream? Am I bound to wake up from a coma someday soon?

“No… no…” I shake my head and try to pull the thoughts out through the roots of my long hair, but it doesn’t work.

I slam my eyes shut and see visions of Connor’s rotting corpse in the forest and mine beginning to decay right next to it, a match truly made in Hell.

“NOOOO!” My scream rips off the padded walls, hurting my ears.

I glance down at my wrist and see a bright blue band labeled “HARM RISK” and rip it off, just before the nurses pin me down to the bed again.

I look up at them and plead, losing all hope by the minute.

“Please, don’t you understand? I’m going to die. They’re coming…” I feel a pinch in my arm and words become harder and harder to form. My eyelids grow heavy, my tongue twists into a knot and my limbs turn to mush.

“Please…”

Their grip on my skin fades and I sink deeper into the mattress, floating straight through it and into the pit of nothingness again, the place that haunts me while I’m asleep.

I’m in Hell when I’m awake and I’m in Hell when I’m asleep.

I just want it to be over, I just want it to stop.

Please, someone, make it stop.

My body aimlessly floats in the blackness, like a lone object lost in space, but without the stars. Every time I look for a sliver of life here, I find absolutely nothing.

I’m trapped with my thoughts, like a lucid nightmare that I can never wake up from.

My legs curl into my chest and I lie on my side in the fetal position. Tears drip down my cheeks and float into the air around me in zero gravity.

“Please… someone make it stop…”

I don’t even know who I’m talking to or if anyone will ever hear me, but it’s worth a try.

My body shakes and I cry until my entire face hurts, accepting the fate of my perpetual loneliness. Tear bubbles flutter around me, the only company I can apparently entertain in here.

A voice quietly whispers, catching me by surprise.

“Octavia…”

It’s as quiet as a mouse’s squeak, its words are hard to even comprehend. I sniffle and listen closer for it.

“Octavia, come here.”

I sit up and swim around, trying to pinpoint where exactly it’s coming from. The vast nothingness surrounds me in every direction and just as I’m about to give up hope, it speaks again, but much closer.

“I can help you.”

Whatever it is or whoever it is, it’s invisible, but I’m sure that I’m next to it. I can hear the voice clearly enough now that I squat into a seated position and cross my legs, waiting for it to speak again.

A touch of a tiny hand brushes across my back. I can feel a figure of energy around the size of a small child next to me, but I still can’t see it.

“You want to die, don’t you?”

It’s small and the soft voice sounds young and feminine. Their hands brush up and down my arms soothingly while I hang my head low, not mentally strong enough to reply quite yet.

“Octavia, I can help you…” It circles me like a predator stalking its prey.

I sigh.

“I just want it to stop. How do I make the wheel stop turning?” I mumble under my breath, my brain exhausted.

The voice I’m talking to seems to siphon away my life force, feeding on my energy like a vampire.

“I can stop it, you just need to do one thing for me.”

It continues to pace around me slowly.

Memories flash through my mind of my childhood, laughing and running around the house, my father chasing right on my tail. I see glimpses of my mother at her altar, lighting incense and wafting the smoke around the room, the smell filling my nose.

A smile creeps up my cheeks while a tear falls down.

I see visions of myself eating ice cream with my parents, the milk dripping down my sticky adolescent fingers and the sun beating on my back. We’re all laughing and enjoying the sunshine outside together. I miss it.

My mother… I hate her for what she did to the boys, for what she did to me. But she’s my mother, they’re my parents, and I miss them every single day.

I wipe the tear off my cheek and open my eyes to see the child version of me standing right in front of me. Her hair is in cute pigtails, wearing a little black dress that I remember my mother hemming when I was six. She hated that I only wanted to wear black or grey and we constantly fought about it.

My arm stretches out long to touch her, but it phases right through.

“Are you real?” I hesitantly ask.

“You miss them, don’t you want to join them?”

Child me stares at me with devious intentions, her head tilting slightly to the left in a creepy way.

A sob wrecks out of me, and a burning in my chest makes it hard to breathe. I run my fingers through my hair, wracking her question around my skull.

Of course I fucking miss them. My head nods up and down, but my lips stay sealed shut.

“It’s been hard, hasn’t it?”

I nod again.

“Everyone who’s ever loved you has either died or abandoned you.”

Her harsh words cut through me like a knife, but I know they’re true. I pull my knees to my chest and my head falls on them. I can’t physically curl up enough to feel the comfort that I need right now.

“Death follows you everywhere you go, Octavia, and now it’s your turn to give back to it.”

I continue to nod my head silently, showing that I agree but I have no energy for words.

“I will guide you when you wake up, just don’t forget to listen for my voice.”

Child me reaches forward and touches my shoulder one last time before vanishing into the darkness, leaving adult me to sit in my endless loneliness once again.

My words come out as a wheeze, but I push them out with all my might.

“I’m… ready.”