Inheritance of ash

...until you can't.

TW: mentions of self-harm

⸻

The laughter had long since faded. The lights in the common room dimmed one by one, like stars retreating behind a slow-moving cloud. The halls were quiet now, empty except for the faint hum of tower systems breathing in their sleep.

In her room, Vicky sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the mirror. The overhead light was off. Only the faint green glow of her bracelet pulsed gently from the nightstand behind her, casting soft shadows across her face, her hands, her bare legs.

She'd pulled her pajama pants down to her knees. Not out of shame. Not even out of curiosity.

Just necessity.

Because there they were again.

The scars.

A mess of pale, crisscrossing lines on the inside of her thigh. Some faint, older. Others more vivid, newer than she remembered. But all hers. All undeniably... hers.

She stared at them like she was waiting for them to speak.

They didn't.

Her reflection didn't either.

The silence felt louder here. Thicker.

She swallowed.

She'd told Kate days ago. Maybe longer. Told her she had no idea what had driven her to it — back then. Wherever "then" even was. Whatever world, whatever life had held her before the green hole tore her from it and dropped her screaming into this one.

She'd said she didn't remember doing it. Just waking up here, with them. Like they were part of the luggage she hadn't meant to pack.

And she hadn't lied.

Back then, she hadn't understood.

But now...

Now she did.

She understood perfectly.

Her throat burned with the truth of it, though her eyes stayed dry. It wasn't a feeling — not even an emotion she could name. It was pressure. Weight. Like gravity had been dialed up in her bones. Like she couldn't float if she tried.

She looked at her scars again.

Something tight and desperate twisted in her chest.

Not for the pain. Not even the blood.

But the control.

The choice.

A voice in her head whispered — soft, dangerous:
At least that would be something you choose.
Something you did. Not something done to you.

She ran a finger across one of the lines. It didn't hurt anymore. Not physically. But the thought of it echoed. A warning. A temptation.

The helplessness pulsed beneath her skin like poison.

She didn't know who she was. Not really. Not with the dream, the voice, the questions nobody could answer. Not with the bracelet glowing for her and no one else. Not with the faces in her head that never belonged.

And she definitely didn't belong here.

Not with them.

Not with people who smiled that easily. Who laughed and believed and lived like their hearts hadn't been broken in places they couldn't name.

She blinked slowly.

Her own smile from dinner flickered across her face in the mirror — hollow now. Ugly. A mockery of itself.