She waited until he was asleep.
Not the restless half-sleep that came most nights, where his breathing stayed sharp and fast, where he rolled toward her and whispered into the dark. No—this was deep, bone-heavy sleep. The kind that came after emotional exhaustion. After a day spent trying to prove he could be forgiven.
The door remained unlocked, just as he promised.
And just as she had asked.
He thought it was a test.
It was a plan.
Mina moved with the grace of someone who had rehearsed each step a thousand times in her head. She didn’t gather her things—there was nothing in that room worth taking. She didn’t wear shoes. The silence demanded her bare feet. She slid the sharpened mirror shard into her sleeve one last time. Not for violence, but for defense. She would not become him.
The hallway was long and silent. Pale lights flickered in and out overhead. The air tasted of mildew and fear. Every creak in the floor, every hum of the bulbs felt amplified by the scream in her lungs.
But she walked on.
Down the corridor. Up the stairwell.
To the iron door.
And then—
Freedom.
Real, open air.
She stood in the woods outside his house, leaves tangled in her skirt, breath ragged, skin cold with the shock of wind. The stars blinked above like indifferent witnesses. Her hands trembled.
But she didn’t cry.
She didn’t look back.
She just ran.
---
Eren woke an hour later.
The bed was empty.
The room was quiet.
The silence was wrong.
He sat up fast, breath catching in his throat. He ran to the hallway, heart beating in his skull. He called her name—not softly, not kindly, but like a prayer that knew it had already been rejected.
No answer.
He found the door open.
He found the stairs cold.
He found the final door—
Gone.
Just wind now.
Just sky.
He stood in the threshold of the woods, barefoot, eyes wide, lips parted.
His hands curled into fists.
She had lied.
She had smiled. Said she trusted him. Said she remembered.
She kissed his cheek.
She said she would stay.
She said—
And now she was gone.
He fell to his knees.
The ground didn’t comfort him.
He pressed his hands into the dirt and screamed.
A sound without language. Without shape. The sound of a heart unraveling, of a soul being torn in half. Of a mind remembering it never truly held what it tried to possess.
He screamed until his voice broke.
And when there was nothing left, he whispered her name.
Over and over again.
As if that might pull her back.
Mina didn’t stop running until her legs gave out.
She collapsed at the edge of a highway, dirt clinging to her arms, lungs burning. A truck driver saw her. Pulled over. Called the police. They didn’t ask many questions. She didn’t give many answers.
Not at first.
In the hospital, they examined her body. She let them. In the interview room, they asked what happened. She spoke carefully. Not all at once. The story came out like peeling skin from a wound—slow, ragged, painful.
Her parents came. Her mother wept. Her father didn’t speak.
The world was louder than she remembered.
Brighter.
Faster.
People talked too much. Touched her too quickly. Looked at her like a miracle. Or a ghost.
She flinched every time a door closed behind her.
But she was free.
And that was enough.
For now.
Months passed.
There was a trial.
Eren didn’t appear.
He was never found.
The cabin was empty when police arrived. A few burnt journals in the fireplace. An empty cage in the basement. A single photograph of Mina—age ten, holding a violet—in a cracked frame beside the bed.
They searched for weeks.
Then stopped.
Officially, he was declared missing. Unofficially, dead.
She didn’t believe either.
She knew better than anyone—
Some things don’t die. They just hide.
A year later, Mina sat on the edge of a field full of wildflowers.
It wasn’t her grandmother’s garden. But it was close enough.
The sky was a soft blue. The wind sang.
She lay back in the grass and stared at the clouds until they stopped looking like anything but sky.
She still woke sometimes with his voice in her head.
Still touched the inside of her wrist where he used to hold her too tightly.
Still dreamed of walls.
But when she breathed in, she no longer tasted him in the air.
She was still healing.
But she was hers again.
And this time—
There were no strings left to cut.
---
The End.
YOU ARE READING
Butterfly Strings
RomanceA 7-year-old boy who's already showing deep, obsessive attachment A 5-year-old girl who is sweet, innocent, and unaware of the boy's growing obsession She was the girl who saw the world in colors. He was the boy who only saw her. Mina never knew the...
