“This is not right.” A female voice echoes through the church, it sounds pointed. What does she want? I spin around but there is no one behind me. The two Touched are still standing on the other end of the room, one healing the other. What are they whispering about me?

  “What are you saying?” I scream, my voice hoarse as it comes out. Was that my voice, it didn’t sound right? Whose voice was that?

  “This isn’t you.” I fall face first, my head slamming into the ground hard, someone pushed me. I try to roll over, and see who did it, but no one is standing there.

  “Suddenly Madison forget how to breathe.” Prisha’s voice booms through the church, shattering every window that was still remaining. I try to gasp, but I don’t remember how to breath.

  I’m pretty sure there was lungs in my air a minute ago. Wait a minute, that’s not right, your lungs hold air, not the other way around. I try crawling across the floor, my hands digging through the glass as I do so. I try to scream, but I don’t have the air to do so.

  My lungs start to burn, I’m pretty sure there is a fire inside of me, but I don’t know how it got there. Did I start it? No, I couldn’t have, I’m not good at starting fires, perhaps Dardania did. She’s much better than myself.

  “Confess your sins.” I raise my head to see the two Touched standing over me. No, is it the Touched? What do the Touched look like? Who are you?

  “Confess your sins.” The entire world before me starts to fade to black except the two individuals that are looming over me like titans. Why are they so tall, are they going to crush me?

  I try to move away, but I can’t. The entire world around me is covered in glass. Why is there so much glass and where did it come from?

  “Confess your sins!” I start to writhe in agony as every fiber of my being feels like it’s being ripped apart at the seams. I still don’t remember what the action of breathing is supposed to look like, so I can’t scream. Do people scream? Was that I thing I did before?

  My sins, I’m supposed to confess them, but I don’t remember what they are. When did I sin? Perhaps it was when I nearly killed Apate?

  “Help me!?” Apate’s voice booms as her bloody body flops onto the pile of glass in front of me. I try to cover my ears, but her voice starts to sound like it’s coming from inside my head now, bouncing around my skull. Get out! Get out! Get out! Why are you crawling inside of there Apate? Is it because I killed you? Did I kill you?

  Oh right, I was supposed to be confessing my sin. I sit up sharply, looking at the Touched who are now standing just slightly further away from me. I can’t breathe, so how do I do this. Sin. Sin. Sin. Sin. Sin. What sin?

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Trevor! I couldn’t stop Trevor, he did a ton of bad stuff and I wasn’t ready. He just stabbed everyone and I let him. That’s sinful behavior. Perhaps I can confess to that.

  “You’re Next.” Trevor’s voice booms through my skull, kicking Apate out and causing her to just hang limply in the air in front of me. Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out.

  My bracelet! I go to grab my bracelet from my wrist, but it’s not there, where did it go? Who took it? I know it was the Touched! They had to have taken it. Give it back!

  I look up at them, but it’s not there, instead its laying in front of their feet but there is a pile of glass between it and me. I begin crawling through the glass to get to my staff, it’s the only way I can get it.

  Stop moving! Why does it keep crawling away from me? No matter how much I crawl through the glass it never moves any closer. Why are you doing this to me?

  I throw myself backwards, staring up at the void above me.

  What is happening? Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? I curl up into a ball. Since I can’t remember how to breathe, I guess it’s my time to die. It’s not like I was worth anything to begin with.

  I never knew my place, until this void. It’s the only place that felt like it truly matched me. The camp, perhaps that was home. Perhaps I never even left the camp. Am I still there?

  When I came to this world, the camp was all that I knew. Is there something comforting in that? No, why would a death camp be comforting?

  I think I lost it.

  My mind, it’s broken.

  Something cracked inside of me.

  Now I’m suffering because of that. I thought that if I proved myself against the Touched that I could be useful again. That I could somehow make amends for all my failures. To finally find what my purpose was. That wasn’t the case though.

  Instead, I broke myself. I shattered the cracked glass of my mind, and I have no idea how to put it back together again.

  “This is not right.” There’s that voice again, who is that? I spin around to see Hitha standing in front of me, her arms crossed. “Are you going to snap out of it or just sit here like a cockroach on the floor?”

  “I… I don’t know how.” I gasp. I somehow remembered how to breathe again. What a minute? Prisha didn’t just cast that spell, it was a memory of the spell. That was several days ago.

  Hitha sits down in front of me, crosses her legs.

  “Your mind has broken, fractured itself in the attempt to protect itself. I am what remains of the part of your mind that is still in tact. You won’t be able to just simply fix this, trauma isn’t healed over night. It will take time, love, and care, and I can help with that. But for now, you have to stand up and snap out of it. Something isn’t right here.”

  Hitha steps to the side and I can see the Touched again, except its all six of them rather than just the two that I was seeing moments ago. I turn to her, confused.

  “What do you mean? What’s going on?”

  “The Touched never come together, only on very rare occasions.” Hitha motions towards the six that stand before us. “But all six of them are here now. In one place, in Sirius, standing face to face with all of us.”

  “How do you know this? I don’t even know this and if you’re a part of my mind…” I ask, confused on what is going on.

  “I sense it. There is something sinister in the air, and I don’t know what it is. I imagine the Saint is nearby as well. He may have told James he hasn’t relayed information to the Touched, but now that we are face to face with them, I’m not sure I believe that. So stand up, be the High Priestess, and kick some ass.” Hitha reaches out her hand for me, I grab a hold of it, pulling myself back to my feet.

  “I can do this.” I say to myself as my vision becomes clear, and I finally see the church again. The world has returned to normal, I am ready.