It’s all too much.

Even from my sanctuary by the water, I could still smell smoke. The aftertaste of my father burning coated my throat, and my eyes smarted with ash.

Throwing my head back, I glowered at the moon.

I’d never have another birthday where I feared the cake was laced with cyanide.

I’d never be sent back to the mental institute and kept prisoner in a straitjacket.

I’d never have to worry about Jasmine being tossed from the Hall and left to fend alone.

I’d never again bow to the wishes of a deranged family lineage.

I’m free.

Cut’s free.

Those I love and fought for are free.

Feeling more animal than human, I had no control as I crawled on all fours to the water’s edge. My hands squelched through the mud, moving like a beast. I gasped as I traded land for icy water. Waist deep then chest. I kept going until the mud switched to silt, welcoming rather than preventing.

I kept going.

Leaving ground and gravity, I slipped into weightless swimming.

I didn’t try to stay on the surface. The moment I couldn’t feel the bottom beneath my shoes, I let go. I sank below, dunking into the cold darkness.

I ran from everything, hiding in the pond.

Holding my breath, the freezing temperature stole my pain and hunger, soaking through my blood-saturated jeans and cinder-coated jumper.

With water above and all around me, I opened my mouth and screamed.

I screamed and screamed.

I screamed so fucking loud.

I screamed for my father, my mother, my sister and brothers.

I screamed for myself.

Bubbles flew from my mouth.

Salty tears mingled with fresh water and frogs sped away from my emotional unravelling.

I screamed and yelled and cursed and shouted and only the depth could hear me.

I poured forth my despair, my guilt, my condition, my fever, my battle-worn body.

I sank deeper and deeper, permitting my liquid-logged clothes to take me to the murky bottom. Plant fronds tickled my ankles, bubbles erupted from my shirt, and my hands hovered in front of my face, white as death and just as cold.

I focused on my heartbeat—the only noise in the cavernous body of water. As seconds ticked on, it slowed…it steadied; it finally found its own rhythm away from tonight’s atrocities.

Down there, I found something I’d been missing.

Forgiveness.

Only once my lungs burst for air did I kick off my shoes and push off the bottom. The rush of water over my skin washed me clean—not just from tonight but from everything. I hadn’t done it out of fun. I’d done it out of loyalty to those who needed to be fought for.

I wasn’t vindictive or spiteful.

I was justified.

I was baptised anew.

Breaking the surface, I gulped in greedy breaths, feeling a sense of rebirth. My tiredness faded, my wounds numbed, and I swam to look back the way I’d come.

There, on the horizon, the angry reds, yellows, and ochres of a raging fire danced in the dark night sky. Smoke stole the Milky Way and fire cleansed Hawksridge.

I hung in the snowy embrace of the water, just watching, always watching.

I shivered. My teeth chattered. And I craved warmth and bed and Nila.

I’d done what I needed to even though it almost broke me.

I had nothing left to fear.

Looking at Hawksridge Hall, my eyes found Nila’s bedroom. The light burned in her window, a lighthouse for my drowning sorrows, a beacon leading me back to her.

I kicked toward the shore.

I need you, Needle.

I need you so fucking much.

She would put me back together.

She would understand what I’d done and accept me with no questions or ultimatums or tests.

She would love me unconditionally.

My heart calmed.

My mind quieted.

And finally, finally, finally, I found peace.

THERE WAS A saying that humans were capable of knowing only one thing.

One thing of ultimate, undeniable conviction where everything else—our thoughts, opinions, careers, likes, dislikes—even our entire lifespan of choices, were open to interpretation and amendments.

Only one thing was irrefutable. That one thing was: we exist.

We knew as a species—as an intelligent race of culture and history—that we lived and breathed and existed.

Nothing else outside of that was fundamental, only the knowledge we were alive. It evolved us from animals because with our existence came awareness for what a gift life was.

Some of us squandered it.

Others muddied it to the point of no redemption, but most of us appreciated the small present we’d been given and were grateful for it—no matter how lowly or high, rich or poor, easy or hard.

We existed, and that was a wondrous thing.

I’d never truly understood just how grateful I was.

But I did now.

As I lay in an in-between world where pain, death, or even time couldn’t reach me, I had endless space to evaluate and understand. I’d existed as more than just a man, more than a brother, or friend, or son.

I’d existed because I made a difference to those I loved.

I cherished my sister.

I helped my brother.

And I did my best to remain true to the soul inside me rather than outside influences trying to change me.

I existed truthfully and that was all that mattered.

I wouldn’t lie and say I didn’t miss him. I missed the relationships with those I cared about. I missed my home, my possessions, my future. I missed worldly items because I knew I’d never see them again.