RIKA
She was still there….
Candle wax on my skin and a traumatic naked body, I really don't want to see..
“Not today…Please Athena…just…go away. I'll cut myself but…but not that.”
But Athena's face wouldn't leave, she burned behind my eyelids even as the sound of my name cut through the dark from somewhere outside the nightmare.
I didn't trust it at first. She did this sometimes, softened her voice into something gentle right before she crossed the room and made me into something I spent days afterward trying to forget.
So I stayed where I was, chest heaving, hands still moving without my permission, dragging across my own skin the way she'd taught me to when she wanted me to punish myself.
"Rika, please wake up."
The sob broke it open.
That small fracture in the voice, that in
