The moon hung in the sky like a fresh wound. It bled into the heavens like the color of clotted blood seeping over lacerated skin. As I ventured deeper into the heart of the forest, the frozen earth beneath my bare feet groaned—not with the stride of a conqueror, but with the hollow silence of a victim marching toward her own execution. I was back inside that glass jar, the lid of which I had fastened with my own hands; fogging the glass with my own breath, watching the world outside like a blurred nightmare.
The world that once seemed so simple now felt hazy to my eyes, as if those days had never truly existed. To suffocate in my own breath felt more noble than being strangled by the hands of another.
