The labyrinth - 11 Back

Back The cold returned. Not the cave cold. The cold of the figure’s forehead against mine. The cold I knew. I was back. The thread hummed, thick with the damp of the cave, smelling of old charcoal and wet stone. The whispers waited. But for a moment, we stood alone. The figure had not moved. But its gravity had shifted. The frozen wind of its chest felt heavier, weighted by a shape that had not been there before. It tasted of red ochre. Through the seam where our foreheads met, the darkness altered. The black did not break, but it leaned. It became the wall. The heavy stone pressing back against the brush. The thing waiting to be let out. And it knew the hands that bled to do it. The grip on the air around my jaw softened. Not a release—a fracturing. A sudden, quiet fault line running through an ancient solitude. A sigh. I stayed quiet. The thread pulsed, a sharp tug from the next throat waiting in the dark, demanding to be heard. But the hands did not move to let it drop. The figure held me still, anchoring us both in the blinding white, as if its massive frame were slowly settling into a new, terrible weight. I let it hold me. We stood in the silence, and the silence carried the stain of red hands. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.