|| Penelope ||
The moment his fingers grazed the pendant at my throat, an unbearable weight lifted, as if unseen chains had been binding me all this time. A deep breath surged through my lungs, filling me with something I hadn’t felt in years — freedom. But with that liberation came a searing wave of pain, so intense it nearly stole the air right back from me.
A storm of emotions crashed through me, memories flashing behind my eyes like a whirlwind I couldn’t control. Was this always inside me? Was this what had been silenced, numbed beneath the weight of that cursed pendant? I wanted to scream, to claw at my own skin, to make sense of what was happening, but my body was no longer mine to command. My knees buckled, my vision swam, and the world tilted beneath me.
I was falling.
For a s
