The room stays quiet long after the shaking stops. I sit there against the bed frame, breathing slow, letting the last of the panic drain out of me. My ribs ache. My head feels heavy. My eyes burn. But the pressure in my chest has eased. Not gone. Just loosened enough that I can breathe without feeling like I am drowning.
I push myself up and sit on the edge of the bed. The mattress sags under my weight. The sheets smell like detergent and dust. I pull my shoes off, then my jacket, then ease myself down onto the mattress. Every movement hurts, but it is a dull hurt now, not the sharp kind that steals breath.
I stare at the ceiling. The flickering light. The peeling paint. The hum of the AC. My body feels like it is made of sand. Heavy. Unsteady. Ready to collapse.
For the first time since reshaping myself, since waking up in that alley with a body that finally matched the version of me I always wanted to be, I let myself feel tired. Not scared. Not wired. Not braced for the next hit. Just tired.
The exhaustion rolls over me like a tide. Slow at first, then stronger. My eyes drift shut. My breathing evens out. The mattress sinks around me. The world fades.
Sleep takes me before I can fight it.
The darkness shifts.
The motel room dissolves.
I am standing in the white fog again.
The pocket dimension.
Gabrielle is already there.
She stands with her hands behind her back, posture straight, chin lifted. Her expression is different this time. Not annoyed. Not impatient. Something steadier. Something almost proud.
"You survived," she says.
Her voice echoes through the fog, calm and even.
I look down at myself. No bruises. No blood. No pain. Just me. The version of me that exists here. The version I shaped with my own hand.
"I did," I say.
She circles me once, slow, like she is inspecting a blade she forged and is finally satisfied with the edge.
"You had no access to the power," she says. "No pen. No paper. No way to write. You were trapped in a room with a man who wanted to break you, and you had nothing but your mind."
I swallow. "Yeah."
"And you still won."
She stops in front of me. Her eyes meet mine. Sharp. Clear. Focused.
"The man you used to be would have folded," she says. "He would have begged. He would have broken. He would have waited for someone else to save him."
I do not argue. She is right.
"But you," she says, "you fought with nothing but yourself. You endured fear, pain, humiliation. You outplayed a man who had every advantage."
She steps closer. Close enough that I can see the faint glow in her eyes.
"You did not survive because of the power," she says. "You survived because you refused to die."
The fog shifts around us, like it is listening.
"You reshaped your body," she says. "But tonight you reshaped something far more important."
I breathe in. Slow. Steady.
"You proved you are not the small man you were," she says. "You proved you are not the loser who let life happen to him. You proved you are someone who can rise."
Her voice softens. Just a little.
"A phoenix is not reborn because it is noble," she says. "It is reborn because it burns and still chooses to stand."
The words hit something deep inside me. Something raw. Something real.
She steps back.
"I have more confidence in you now," she says. "Not because of your power. Because of your will."
The fog brightens around us. The space feels larger. Lighter.
"Rest," she says. "You earned that much."
The fog thickens. The ground softens under my feet. My body feels heavy again, but not with fear. With peace.
For the first time since the kidnapping, since the table, since the gun, since the panic and the pain and the running, I let myself fall.
The fog catches me.
The world fades.
And I sleep.