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Content Warning for Chapter 6 This chapter contains depictions of psychological distress, hallucinations, paranoia, mentions of therapy, and unsettling imagery (including gore-like descriptions, though not physical). Reader discretion is advised, especially for those sensitive to topics related to mental health struggles and dissociation. DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT.
there's fluff despite everything, dw, you're not just a reader! there's aftercare.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another day. Another twisted activity waiting for us.
We were all gathered in a cramped, windowless room today — air thick with tension and the faint metallic tang of stress-sweat. Proctors paced back and forth, handing out assignments, their shoes tapping like countdown clocks against the tile.
Every student had their own task: someone bent metal into intricate symbols; another whispered to a bowl of water until their reflection screamed back; one kid calculated endless numbers, their fingers twitching like flesh calculators.
And me? I got the box.
It sat at the center of the room, black and heart beating, almost alive. When the proctor called my name, my gut twisted painfully — the same way it did when I first learned my mother died. A slow-blooming nausea that whispered, This will change you.
I obeyed anyway. Because what else could I do?
The moment my fingertips brushed the box, everything around me ruptured.
The walls melted, my classmates vanished, and suddenly I was standing on a bridge suspended over nothing. The sky churned with black oil clouds, and the only sound was my own pulse, loud and thunderous, rattling my skull from the inside out.
The first puzzle piece was easy — a small section of the box slid away under my touch, clicking into place like a child's toy. Too easy.
The second piece? It bit into my skin. Razor-sharp edges slid under my nails, prying them up like peeling fruit skin. Blood welled fast and slick, dripping down my wrists — but I couldn't stop. My fingers moved like puppets under some crueler hand, and the more I solved, the more reality warped around me.
I saw my mother's coffin. Even though in reality, I never had the chance to give my mother a proper burial.
It was standing upright beside me — nailed shut, but not enough to stop her hand from slipping through the crack. Bone-thin fingers, nails ripped clean off, reaching for me.
Behind me, Clara stood with her throat slit wide open — petals growing from the wound like some macabre garden, blooming faster every time I blinked.
Worst of all, in the mirrored shards scattered on the ground, I saw myself. Or versions of me.
One had no eyes, just empty sockets filled with writhing, ink-black worms.
One had my lips stitched shut with golden wire, my hands folded politely like a corpse.
One stood with her back bent at a grotesque angle, head hanging loose by a thread of skin.
I should have screamed. I should have stopped. I didn't.
Because the box wouldn't let me.
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With every new piece, the puzzle took more from me.
My left eye burst — or at least, it felt like it. A blinding flash of pain seared through my skull, and something thicker than blood leaked down my cheek. I wiped at it, trembling, and my hand came away soaked in black ink, dripping like melted shadow.
My fingers began to crack and splinter, bone peeking through skin. Every time a piece slid into place, my own flesh unraveled — as if solving the puzzle meant dismantling myself.
But I couldn't stop.
Time twisted in knots around me. The bridge collapsed and rebuilt itself beneath my feet, forcing me to step forward, backward, sideways — every wrong step dropped me into another memory.
I fell into my childhood bedroom, staring at my mother's empty bed.
I fell into the schoolyard, watching Clara wave before a flower pierced her hand.
I fell into my own grave, dirt filling my mouth until I couldn't scream.
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Somewhere, some tiny rational part of my mind knew the truth.
This wasn't real. None of it. This was the test — a psychic simulation planted directly into my skull by the proctors. My body was still standing in that tiny room, trembling, hands clutching the real box.
But the rest of me? I was dying. Over and over and over.
This was how they forced my powers to awaken. Not through training — through terror. Through stress so violent my time magic would activate by instinct.
They were ripping me open, not to teach me, but to see if I could survive it.
When the final piece slid into place, I hit the ground hard. My knees split open against jagged stone, and for a moment I could taste my own blood, bright and sharp like a warning bell.
The bridge shattered beneath me, sending me into a free-fall through my own memories, my own past mistakes. I relived my mother's death in reverse, watching her rise from the grave, heal from her sickness, smile at me once more—
And then I woke up.
Back in the room. Hands trembling over the very normal, very wooden puzzle box. The proctor nodded once. "Good work." My gaze fell to the woman by his side. It was Ms. Renée
She didn't ask questions. Didn't tell me it was all fake, because she knew it didn't matter. My mind couldn't tell the difference. My body still remembered the agony, the trauma. The phantom pain lingered, too deep to scrub out.
She knelt beside me, hands warm on my frozen skin. "Hagarin, You're okay."
I couldn't even answer. My throat felt stitched shut.
She wiped my face gently — her sleeve coming away soaked with cold sweat and tears. No blood. No ink. Just a terrified kid they pushed too far.
The walk home is as though paranoia grips through my skin, it causes me to shiver to no end, no relief, no warmth.
Ms. Renée walked me home, her arm never leaving my shoulders. Every step felt like it existed in three different timelines — one where I fell, one where I ran, one where I stood still until time ate me alive.
When we reached my door, I froze.
It wasn't my house. It was my mother's funeral home, twisted into the shape of my front door. Her coffin was waiting inside — not real, but my brain didn't care.
I collapsed to my knees, trembling so violently I thought my bones would rattle apart.
Ms. Renee held me, whispering, "You're here. You're real." I didn't believe her.
I still don't.
That night, I lay in bed, staring at my hands.
The injuries were gone. My fingers were whole. My eye was intact. My skin was clean.
But when I clenched my fists, the air shimmered, rippling faintly like time didn't fully trust me anymore.
Every time I blinked, I saw the stitched-mouth version of me sitting at the foot of my bed, watching, waiting for me to break again.
Time didn't just test me today. It claimed me.
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Morning light gently seeped through the veil of my curtains, painting fragile gold across the room and...
Sleep didn't come.
When I closed my eyes, I fell into the bridge again. Into the coffin. Into my own corpse.
I woke up gasping, fingers clawing at my throat, convinced it was still sewn shut. I vomited once — black sludge that vanished the moment I blinked, leaving me doubting if it ever happened.
Time magic is supposed to be beautiful. But mine feels like a curse — a parasite gnawing at my spine, whispering, You don't deserve control. We do.
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The next morning—another morning. I saw my reflection.
My face was fine. But my shadow moved slower than me, lagging by just a fraction of a second — like time itself didn't fully trust me anymore.
At breakfast, my cup cracked when I picked it up — age speeding up around my fingertips until the glass simply couldn't hold itself together.
I was unraveling. And no one could see it but me.
They wanted me to learn control.
What I learned instead is that time has teeth — and every second you touch will bite back.
I'm stronger now. But I'm also haunted.
Because every time I close my eyes, I still see that stitched-mouth girl — still sitting at the foot of my bed, still waiting for me to break her free.
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The past five days unraveled like a slow, cruel unraveling of thread — paranoia soaked into every corner of my mind until it left me disheveled, barely standing today. My fingers now brush against the fragile edges of reality, where I could finally distinguish what was real and what was only a phantom born from my fear.
Guilt curled itself around my throat like a noose, tightening with every breath I took. I never gave Hanari the explanation she deserved — I simply pushed her towards Ms. Renée, too ashamed, too fractured to speak for myself.
The school excused me for a month, a mercy disguised as punishment. They said I needed time to recover, as if time alone could soothe wounds carved into my mind. Even now, I'm not sure if healing is something I can reach.
A therapist was assigned to untangle my chaos, but how do you calm nerves that still vibrate with phantom pain? How do you silence a storm that's made a home inside your head?
The day I finally told Hanari the truth, the weight of my own words crushed me. I cried. I broke. I admitted I was not okay — and somehow, saying it out loud made it all feel so much heavier.
When the tears finally fell, Hanari pulled me into her arms — no words, no questions, just the quiet strength of her embrace. It was her way of reminding me that I was still here, that I was alive, even if my mind had long wandered into the graveyard of my fears. Her warmth bled into my skin, thawing the frost left by endless nights of paranoia. And in her arms, I could finally...
Breathe.
And for the first time in days, I drifted — not into nightmares, not into fractured time loops or restless visions, but into something tender and whole.
I slept in peace.
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Days slip through my fingers, and still, my feet refuse to touch the school grounds. I've let procrastination drape over me like a second skin, curling into my blankets as if they could protect me from everything I'm not ready to face. I feel better now, at least my body does — but my spirit won't rise.
Not yet.
There's a whisper in my mind, one that tells me to step forward, to walk into the unknown, because life rarely waits for those who hesitate. But I'm too tired, and for once, I want to be selfish enough to stay still — to let my bones sink into rest without guilt gnawing at me.
So my world shrinks to something soft and familiar: cooking for my sisters, sweeping the floors, folding laundry, turning ordinary moments into quiet lanterns that light my way back to myself. I even let myself imagine a life of simple domesticity.
But no — a housewife I could never be. Not in this life, not in this body.
I was tracing meaningless lines into my sketchbook when the silence broke. A knock — sharp, loud, persistent — rattled the door. A knock so familiar, I already knew whose hand it belonged to.
I wasn’t wearing my mask, so for a brief moment, I caught a small glimpse of the future. It was them — Ezra, Clarence, and Clara. Oddly enough, my mind felt calm, as if the usual storm had finally settled. Maybe it was because I was relaxed, and for once, my powers weren’t overwhelming me.
Perhaps the only real weapon against my own abilities was something as simple as staying calm. Maybe that was the key all along.
I walked toward the front door, and just as my vision predicted, there stood Ezra.
"Oh, my dove! I missed you!" Before I could even process the moment, Ezra swept me off my feet — quite literally — pulling me into a hug so sudden it forced a yelp out of me. Strangely enough, my little glimpse into the future never warned me about that.
The second he set me down, Clara stepped forward, pulling me into her own embrace. There was a warmth in it that made my heart ache in the best way. In that moment, surrounded by people who cared, I felt alive.
"I’m so glad you’re okay," Clara said softly, her voice trembling as unshed tears gathered in her eyes.
"Hey, don’t cry. I’m here — I’m okay now. Sane as ever," I reassured her, though my smile was just a little wobbly.
"Ooh, nice house." Ezra’s eyes darted around, already scanning every corner like a curious child in a new playground.
I let out a quiet groan, fully expecting him to start touching everything he could get his hands on.
"I’m really glad you’re okay now, Hagarin," Clarence said, his voice softer than usual. "When we saw you leaving school with Ms. Renée, you looked... not great."
I nodded, the memory making my shoulders tense involuntarily. "It was hell," I admitted. No sugarcoating, just the raw truth.
I led them into the living room, only to find Ezra already making himself at home, flipping through the movie collection like he owned the place.
"Have a seat, guys. I own the place anyway," Ezra joked, sprawling dramatically across the couch like a king claiming his throne.
Without a second thought, I grabbed a cushion and threw it straight at his face. Clara and Clarence burst into soft laughter as they settled into the room, filling the space with a comforting sense of normalcy I hadn’t felt in a while.
And it was nice — really nice.
I didn’t feel alone.
I had them, too.
They might each carry their own ghosts, their own cracks and sharp edges, but knowing we all had our struggles somehow made it easier to breathe. I wasn’t drifting aimlessly in isolation anymore. I had my people—chaotic, flawed, and human—right beside me.
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