Reece woke up in her room, her head pounding like a drum. She blinked against the dull light streaming through the curtains, her mind struggling to catch up. Then it hit her like a truck: she had fainted into the stalker's arms, and he had taken her to the hospital. The thought made her stomach churn with disgust.

A shiver ran through her, her goosebumps rising as nausea churned in her stomach. Even thinking about him made her feel dirty, a deep curl of disgust twisting in the pit of her being. She forced herself up, her legs trembling as she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror.

What she saw made her heart sink. A hollow version of herself stared back. The woman in the mirror was unrecognizable: dark circles painted beneath her eyes, red and irritated from endless sleepless nights. Her skin was pale, almost ghostly, drained of the warmth it once held.

She frowned, her breath hitching when a flicker of movement rippled behind her reflection. It was the same old man from her flashbacks, his silhouette blurry and indistinct, making her question if it was real or just another hallucination.

Reece whipped around, her chest tightening, but the room was empty. The only sound was her shallow breathing. She turned back to the mirror, but the surface now shimmered unnaturally, like water disturbed by a pebble.

Her head throbbed, the pain sharp and insistent, making it impossible to Comprehend what was real and what wasn't. She stumbled back, gripping the edge of her desk for support. The ground beneath her felt unsteady, like the world itself was shifting. When her knees buckled, she fell onto the carpet, gasping for air.

Then she saw it.

Blood.

Dark stains spread across the carpet beneath her. And an old man—the same silhouette from the mirror—lay there, unmoving, lifeless. Her scream tore through the room, raw and panicked. But as quickly as the vision appeared, it was gone. The carpet was clean, pristine, as if nothing had ever been there. Yet, when she rubbed her fingers against the spot, the faint metallic tang of iron lingered on her skin.

"It's not real. It's not real," she whispered over and over, scrubbing her hands raw under the sink. But the phantom scent refused to leave her mind.

"I need to see Dr. White," Reece muttered to herself, her voice trembling.

Dr. White was her psychologist—the one person she trusted with the chaotic fragments of her mind. He had been seeing her for two years, helping her piece together her life after the accident she could barely remember. His grandfatherly demeanor and calm reassurance had become a lifeline.

When she called him, he immediately rearranged his appointments to fit her in. "My child, you're pushing yourself too hard again," he said gently when she arrived. "Writing has always been your coping mechanism, but it's also a reflection of the parts of you that are... wounded."

She hesitated, debating whether to tell him about the stalker. In the end, she left it out, unwilling to burden him with another worry.

"Your characters, Reece," Dr. White continued, "are fragments of yourself. Of your pain. Your stories are dark because they reflect what's buried deep within you. You're not fine, my dear. And that's okay. But you must remember, it's not real. None of it is real."

She nodded, absorbing his words even as doubt gnawed at her. He prescribed new medication and reminded her of her breathing techniques. Meditation would help, he said. And though skeptical, she promised to try.

.

.

.

Back in her room, Reece sat cross-legged on the floor, her eyes closed, focusing on her breathing. Slowly, the storm in her mind began to quiet. And then the ideas came—a flood of inspiration for her next book.

Her characters were waiting for her. Xena, the fierce yet tormented heroine. Keith, her enigmatic captor, brimming with Redemption. Problematic, broken characters—each a reflection of Reece's fractured psyche. They weren't just figments of her imagination; they were pieces of her soul, her pain, her unresolved trauma.

She opened her laptop, the blank page staring back at her, taunting her.

"Just one more scene," she whispered, Clinching her Fist. so tightly her knuckles turned white. The words flowed at first, and then stopped, slipping through her fingers like sand.

Frustrated, she glanced toward the window, half-expecting to see her stalker's dark, unblinking eyes staring back. But there was nothing—only the stillness of the night.

The cursor on her screen blinked. And then it moved.

She froze, watching in horror as words began to appear, unbidden.

"The void was no longer content to be imagined. It reached for her now, pulling her from her brittle world of paper and glass."

Her breath caught in her throat. The words twisted into jagged shapes before settling back into coherent sentences. She didn't remember writing them, but they felt disturbingly familiar.

And then she felt it: a tug at the hem of her shirt, gentle at first but insistent.

Reece turned, her chair creaking beneath her. Behind her, the air thickened, shadows pooling like ink. There were no walls, no floor—only an endless void her heart raced as she turned back to her desk, clinging to its edges.

The screen had changed again.

It wasn't her story anymore. It was her.

There she was, seated at her desk, pale and trembling. The perspective zoomed closer, showing every detail of her terror. Below the image, captions appeared: her breathing, her whispered, "What's happening?"

The screen shifted again, and now it showed her walking—but she wasn't walking. She was sitting right here. Wasn't she?

The void pulled harder. Her desk groaned, the shadows were closing on her. She stood, the floor Trembling beneath her, stars pulsing in time with her frantic heartbeat.

"She ran. But the void had always been faster."  The words were appearing on her screen automatically.

The words echoed in her ears, louder and louder, until they were indistinguishable from her own thoughts. The floor gave way, and she fell—plunging through scenes from her stories: 

Xena chained and bloodied, Keith's piercing gaze On her.

And then she was there.

She was watching it happen. Xena, her wrists bound and bleeding, screamed at her.

"You did this to me! You wrote me like this!"

Reece's voice trembled. "No... I didn't mean to..."

But Xena's agonized cries drowned her out, and Reece could only watch as her character's torment unfolded—as though her very words had come to life to haunt her.

Reece woke with a start, gasping for air. Her tear-streaked face burned, her throat raw.

She grabbed a bottle of her medicine and, with trembling hands, poured a handful of pills into her palm. Without hesitation, she shoved them down her throat, heedless of the dosage or the consequences.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(A/N: Just a heads-up—she's hallucinating throughout this entire chapter. If anyone's confused, she is definitely struggling with a mental disorder. Also, Keith and Xena are characters from my book Into the Void. I apologize for including them here. I know Into the Void isn't my best work, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. It was the first book I ever wrote, but I plan to edit it soon. While I don't think that will happen this year, I'm confident it will turn out better with revisions. The storyline is a bit complex, and I'm still figuring out how to simplify it for readers. Thank you for reading!)