Rhea woke up gasping, sweat slick on her skin. The nightmare clung to her flashes of broken lives, faces she couldn't fully remember, but felt bone-deep familiar.
Isaac was already awake, scribbling frantically in his notebook. "You're slipping," he said without looking up. "The curse isn't just outside you. It's inside."
She touched her forehead. The pulse was back a sharp, burning ache like a shard of glass sliding under her skin.
"Every time you fall asleep, it gets worse," Isaac warned. "Your soul fractures more with each death, and soon, the ghost inside will drown out the real you."
Rhea swallowed hard. "How do I fight something that's already inside me?"
Isaac looked her dead in the eyes. "You don't. You embrace it but on your terms."
Before she could ask what that meant, the room flickered. Shadows twisted in the corners like living smoke.
Rhea's own voice whispered, cold and distant: "You're mine."
Her chest tightened. The battle wasn't just for her life anymore it was for her very self.