The Hollow Truth
Isabella's point of view
The weight of silence pressed against my ribs, stretching across my chest like unseen hands tightening with every breath I dared to take, each inhale clawing its way through thick, stagnant air that reeked of something too familiar, something metallic, something warm, something that belonged inside the body yet now stained the world outside.
The darkness stretched, thick and unbroken, swallowing the narrow passage ahead where the walls loomed too close, suffocating with their damp, crumbling surfaces that shed dust with every tremor, the unseen grit clinging to my skin, sliding beneath my nails, leaving behind an irritation that had nothing to do with the physical but everything to do with the awareness that something was terribly, inescapably wrong.
