*

The mirror shatters, pieces fall, A face I don’t recognize at all. The strength they gave, the pain they wrought, and so here I lie, tiered but not defeated.

*

The cold stone walls blurred at the edges of my vision, faintly illuminated by the dim light seeping under the heavy iron door. It had been another day, another series of needles, incantations, and the white hot agony that never seemed to leave my bones. I was used to it by now, the pain; it was almost like a friend, one I knew too well, one that had been with me since the beginning of this hell. But even after all this time, I still wasn’t sure how much more I could endure.

I lay curled up in the corner of my cell, knees tucked to my chest, shivering as the echoes of the day’s torments settled into me. In this tiny, dark place, where hope felt like a distant memory, I clung to whatever small comfort I could find. I let my eyes close, let myself drift to that other place, the one place they hadn’t managed to strip from me. Beneath the big oak tree, a place untouched by their cruelty. A place where the gentle wind blew against my skin, where the golden sunlight danced over the field.

And there, beneath the vast shade of the oak, was Baloria, as constant as the nightmares but somehow… softer now.

I don’t know when she became part of this, when she started appearing in my mind so vividly, but she was always there now, like a haunting echo that refused to fade. Her presence was as familiar as my own heartbeat, and just as inescapable. In this dream space, she was seated on the ground, her fingers running slowly, soothingly, through my hair, each stroke anchoring me as if reminding me that I was still here, still surviving.

I rested my head in her lap, trying to ignore the strange comfort I felt with her. Part of me hated it, hated how my own mind twisted my tormentor into something I found refuge in. But I was too tired to care.

“How are you feeling, little one?” Her voice was smooth, a delicate balance of intrigue and feigned sympathy.

I didn’t answer at first, just closed my eyes tighter, feeling her fingers moving through my hair, each stroke somehow calming the ache inside me. She’d seen every layer of this suffering, and yet, she never stopped pushing.

Her fingers trailed down the side of my face, her touch cool and surprisingly gentle. “Little one,” she murmured, her voice laced with that unsettling mix of mockery and something almost tender. “You’ve changed so much.”

Her hand stilled, fingers lightly tracing the outline of my jaw, and I knew what she was going to say. She didn’t need to ask, but she would anyway, pushing the question deeper, making me confront the thing I had no words for.

“Tell me, Sam,” she purred softly, almost like she cared, “how does it feel?”

“How does what feel?” I whispered, knowing exactly what she meant but stalling, grasping for any shred of control.

“To be… as you are now. To look into a reflection and see a woman gazing back at you.”

I felt a pang at her words, sharp and raw. It was something I avoided thinking about, something I pushed away because I didn’t know what to make of it. I wanted to say it didn’t matter, that it was just a surface, just flesh, but every time I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the dark glass of my cell, I couldn’t help but feel like a stranger in my own skin.

“I don’t know,” I whispered, my voice barely audible, even to myself. “It doesn’t feel real.”

She tilted her head, regarding me with that unnerving intensity. “No?” She let out a soft, amused hum. “You’ve spent seven years shedding parts of yourself, piece by piece, with every injection, every incantation, every scar. Yet you still don’t recognize what you’ve become?”

Stolen story; please report.

I closed my eyes, pressing my face into her lap, as if I could escape her gaze that way. “This isn’t me,” I said, my voice muffled and weak. “It’s… something they did to me. I didn’t ask for this.”

Her fingers resumed their gentle, almost motherly rhythm, each stroke down the length of my hair both comforting and a cruel reminder of my transformation. “Is that so?” she whispered. “Perhaps you didn’t ask, but you survived. You adapted. Your body has molded itself, inch by inch, into something… extraordinary.”

The word felt like a poison. Extraordinary. To her, maybe, I was a triumph a twisted masterpiece of blood and magic. But to me? I couldn’t even look at myself without feeling a chasm open in my chest, a yawning emptiness that I couldn’t fill, no matter how hard I tried.

“Survived, yes,” I admitted, barely holding back the tears that pricked at my eyes. “but… at what cost? I feel… hollow. Like everything I used to be has been stripped away, piece by piece.”

She chuckled softly, a sound that grated against my nerves, but there was a strange warmth in it, as if she found my resistance amusing. “And what, exactly, do you think you were holding onto, Sam?” Her fingers stilled, pressing gently against the back of my neck. “ Oh, little one, you cling to those old scraps of identity like they were treasures. But those memories, that weak, fragile self… they didn’t protect you then, did they?”

Her words dug into me like knives, uncomfortably true. I remembered the days of hunger, loneliness, of shrinking beneath my parents’ anger, of turning the other cheek while other children whispered and laughed, still keeping that fake smile on my face. What had that version of me ever achieved? Nothing, I wanted to say, but the thought caught in my throat.

I wanted to argue, wanted to tell her she was wrong, but the words wouldn’t come. Because maybe, deep down, I knew there was truth in what she said. That boy, the one who had endured so much pain, so much loneliness, hadn’t been strong enough to survive this. Maybe I did need to let him go.

But I couldn’t. Not completely.

“And look at you now,” Baloria continued, her voice softer, almost coaxing. “What they did to you… yes, it was cruel. But it’s transformed you. You’re stronger now. Resilient. Even… beautiful.”

The word made my skin crawl. I wrapped my arms tighter around myself, the strange curve of my body unfamiliar and foreign. “I don’t want to lose myself,” I murmured, my voice thick with the ache that never seemed to leave me.

Her hand slipped beneath my chin, lifting my face so that I was forced to look up at her. Her crimson eyes bore into mine, filled with something dark, something that both frightened and fascinated me.

“Oh, little one,” she whispered, her voice like silk. “Losing yourself? No… you’re shedding your weaknesses, letting them fall away like dead leaves. What’s left is something far greater. Something… perfect.”

The word sent a chill down my spine. Perfect. That’s what they wanted, wasn’t it? To create something perfect, something they could control, manipulate, mold into their image. And in a way, Baloria was right, each piece of me that was stripped away left room for something new, something sharper, something… inhuman.

Her hand moved to my hair again, tracing the silver strands with a soft, possessive touch. “Look at you,” she murmured. “Hair like moonlight, eyes that burn with defiance, even after all these years. You’re not the fragile child you once were. You’re something stronger, something… eternal.”

I turned my face away, biting down on the words that wanted to spill out. Eternal. The idea felt like a prison in itself. They had taken everything from me, my childhood, my body, my sense of self and replaced it with something I didn’t understand. Something that felt like it didn’t belong to me.

“I don’t want this,” I said, my voice breaking. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

She let out a soft sigh, her fingers brushing along my jaw with a tenderness that felt twisted, wrong. “You say that every time,” she whispered, “but every day, you keep going. You endure. You survive. Tell me, Sam… isn’t there a part of you that’s beginning to crave this strength? Don’t you see, Sam? You’re not their victim. You’re their worst nightmare.”

I opened my mouth to protest, to tell her that she was wrong, but the truth was… there was a part of me that wanted it. That had begun to feel the dark allure of the power they had forced into me. And that part terrified me.

But I couldn’t let her know that. I couldn’t let her see the fear that twisted in my gut, the fear that maybe, just maybe, I was becoming something monstrous. Something like her.

“I just want… to be me,” I whispered, barely able to meet her gaze.

She smiled then, a smile that was equal parts amusement and pity. “Oh, Sam,” she murmured, her voice soft and almost sad. “You were never going to be ‘just you.’ Not in this world.”

Her words hung in the air, heavy and inescapable, sinking into me like a weight I couldn’t lift. I felt her hand slide through my hair again, the gentle touch both a comfort and a reminder of everything I’d lost, everything they had forced me to become.

“Perhaps, in time,” she said softly, her voice like a lullaby, “you’ll come to see the beauty in this new self. Perhaps you’ll understand that strength comes from embracing change, not fearing it.”

I closed my eyes, letting her words wash over me, feeling the ache in my chest deepen. I didn’t know what lay ahead, what more they would take from me, but as Baloria’s fingers traced through my hair, I knew one thing with a terrible certainty.

I was changing, whether I wanted to or not.

And part of me was afraid… that maybe, I was beginning to let it happen.