Zara
I pressed my forehead against the door, my chest heaving. For a moment, the emptiness of the room pressed down on me, like it wanted to swallow me whole. My breaths echoed too loudly. I hated the way fear curled its cold fingers around my spine.
No. Don’t give them this power.
I stepped back, glaring at the heavy wood. “Fine,” I muttered. “If you won’t open, I’ll make you.”
I threw my weight against it. The door rattled but held. Again. Harder. My shoulder throbbed, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t the type to wait around for a savior.
And yet… as I crashed against the door again, something cracked open inside me. Not the wood—my memory.
I wasn’t Zara anymore. I was Mira.
The office walls blurred, replaced by a hazy fragment from a previous semester. The memory came sharp, incomplet
