A stark, white backdrop of paint stretches across the four walls—a canvas of pristine simplicity, yet a blankness that almost aches with stillness. The sharp, synthetic scent of air freshener drifts through the enclosed room, overlain with just a hint of hospital-grade sterility.
It does little to mask the subtleties of human presence: a faint trace of perfume, the musk of old leather, a warmth that emanates from bodies and lives spent within this space.
This is a minimalist workspace, with soft lines and neutral colors, designed to calm the mind, soothe frayed nerves, and persuade troubled souls to open up.
Malum sat poised on a plush, charcoal sofa that dominated the room. His posture was rigid, almost statuesque, with his arms firmly crossed over his chest.
His eyes were shut, as if disengaged from the world, but there was a tension in the way his brows furrowed—a silent intensity betraying how acutely he was listening. Despite an air of practiced indifference, he took in every sound, especially the light, deliberate scratch of a pen on paper coming from his left.
A woman sat in a straight-backed chair, not far from him. She was slight in stature, the type whose presence was calm but steadfast—one that drew in confessions and secrets. She wore thin black-framed glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, and as she listened, she jotted notes into a softbound pad.
Her eyes bore the crinkles and fine lines of someone who had smiled, worried, and waited for countless answers over the years—a woman in her early fifties, perhaps. Supple black hair was twisted up in a neat chignon, pins holding it so tightly that not a single strand fell out of place. Her uniform was simple: a crisp, white blouse beneath a brown, collared sweater, the gentle earth tones a match for the velvety brown of her eyes.
Nestled over her heart was a hospital badge that read: Dr. Deborah Smith, MD, PhD, Consultant Child and Family Psychiatrist.
Her eyes moved to the girl reclining on the therapist's lounge. She spoke softly, her voice precise and practiced.
"Can you explain what you mean by being dead, Hellene?"
Ene—Hellene, as she was sometimes addressed formally—lay on a partially inclined recliner, her lanky limbs draped across the soft leather. Her usual mane of wavy black hair was plaited loosely and fell across one shoulder, the occasional unruly strand escaping to brush her cheek.
She wore a flowing white dress in a bohemian style, its long, airy sleeves obscuring her arms. Around her neck, a scarf was wrapped, almost like a talisman, its ends tucked close as if to keep her secrets hidden and her scars unseen.
She reclined in silence, hands folded on her stomach, as if bracing herself against what was coming. Her chest rose and fell with deliberate slowness, and for a moment, she appeared almost serene—a statue of introspection. But the stillness was deceptive.
"Dead... I don't know why. I feel like that. I feel like I'm rotting."
Ene murmured, her voice as thin as the silk scarf she wore. She didn't open her eyes, instead retreating further inward. It was as if she hovered above herself, untethered from the world, her mind drifting on the precipice of darkness.
She paused, as if the act of speaking was an effort threatening to sweep her away. In her mind, she felt herself swaying—a weightless sensation, as if poised at the edge of a bottomless sea. There was nobody else in this internal world, not even a reflection staring back at her from the depths.
Her eyelids flickered with the shadow of thoughts too heavy and old for her years. Fragments of her soul brushed beneath the surface, stirring restlessly even as she conversed with the gentle-faced psychiatrist beside her. Dr. Deborah's voice came again, gentle but precise.
"Can you explain more, Hellene?"
Ene's following words came out as whispers lost in a cavern.
"Repeated..."
This single word made Malum's eyes snap open. For the first time in the session, his attention drifted fully from internal detachment to the young woman before him. Curiosity gnawed at him now, crackling to life where disinterest had once reigned. Dr. Deborah leaned forward, brow lightly creased.
"Repeated? What do you mean?"
Inside her, Ene felt the world tilt. The room was like a spinning top, reality swirling into confusion and decay. With every pulse of her heart, she felt herself slipping—her sense of self dissipating, bobbing like driftwood in the current.
In her dreamlike trance, her body plunged beneath an unseen surface, cold water closing over her, air replaced with suffocating silence.
"I have no control... I am not in control... That I am not real... None of it is real..."
Ene's words grow fainter, hardly breaking the hush of the office. Her voice trembled with the weight of too many memories.
Dr. Deborah continued her explorations, guiding Ene gently deeper, seeking the truths buried below the surface of her conscious mind. They spoke often of the differences between consciousness and subconsciousness—how only the smallest part of herself acted with deliberate intent, while far more of her being roamed undefined in the realm beneath. Dr. Deborah coaxed.
"Can you explain more, Hellene?"
In her mind, Ene saw herself drowning once more. It was a recurring nightmare by now—a relentless undertow stirring up familiar terror and resignation. She let herself drift, following memories as they guided her deeper, losing herself to the dark.
"Drowning... dying..."
She muttered as Malum frowned, troubled. He pondered the liminal state between waking, dreaming, and hypnotic trance. Was Ene awake, asleep, or straddling a precarious line between worlds? Could she truly retrieve memory from her soul—if such a thing could be believed for the ignorance of human beings?
"Killed..."
Ene confessed, the word slicing the silence. The answer struck Malum with a slight flinch. For all the alterations to physical perception, he believed her soul remembered. Philosophy and science, spirit and body—where did one end and the other begin?
The soul was the container of truth; it remembers when the mind doesn't. Flesh and bone were only vessels.
The fact that Ene could recall these wounds meant she was attuned to something beyond ordinary existence. Her blurred hold on reality stemmed not from delusion, but from an overabundance of memory—ones written in the soul rather than the mind.
DPDR or DDD—Depersonalization Dissociation Disorder—the name humans ascribed to this state. A clinical term, drained of myth or soul. Humans believed themselves to be mere flesh and synapses.No wonder their souls were left corrupted.
Dr. Deborah leaned in.
"Killed by whom, Hellene?"
That question intrigues him, as he awaits her answer.
Whilst the drowning sensation threatened to consume her, Ene glimpsed a shadowed figure coalescing in the darkness, yet streaks of light escaped from beneath the swirling gloom.
"I... don't know... Something dark, something... light... hidden."
Her words lingered, heavy in the air. Malum's curiosity deepened: surely she spoke of him—the one who haunted her deaths—but the mention of light brought a new puzzle. Did she see him as something other than darkness? His presence is but mere destruction and corruption; such light within his being should never have been uttered, revolting even for him.
He rested back against the couch with a sigh, attempting to gather the false comfort of old routines. He closed his eyes, but new worries gathered, too persistent to ignore.
"Malum."
The sound of his name rang out, unexpected and clear.
His eyes flew open; the world blurred, and the office was gone. A new space formed before him—vast, swathed in shadow, emptiness extending as far as he could see. Ene stood opposite him, her form limned with ghostly radiance. They were alone, yet something fundamental had shifted.
Her eyes glowed a deep, unearthly red—the color of embers banked under centuries of ash. Her jaw clenched, the muscles working with raw emotion. Anger contorted her face, her features sharpened with a hatred so tangible it pulsed.
He had no time to react before a white-hot agony erupted through his abdomen. It was almost surreal—his own body betraying him for the first time, mortal pain blossoming in his core as a blade punctured his soul. His mouth filled with a bitter, dark liquid, oozing down his chin as his body slumped forward, gravity and shock wrestling him down.
He looked up, eyes flickering with disbelief. The hilt of the sword was in Ene's hands. She stood steady, both triumphant and broken.
His lips parted, dark blood frothed at the corners, but only one choked word escaped.
"Why?"
For a moment, time was suspended, raw silence stretching between their battered spirits—a silence thick with years of unspoken hatred, where she had supposed to hate him, now made clear in illusion.