Rebirth (Lost Souls #1)

Prologue

M y breathing is heavy and labored, and my hands are shaking. Tears stain my vision as they streak down my cheeks. I sit in the corner of the room, hidden between a chair overloaded with clothes and a vanity with a broken mirror. While blood pools around me, I hold a shard of glass in my hand. The pain is already gone, thankfully, but the fatigue is overwhelming. I’m so very, very tired. The strength to keep my eyes open leaves me, and they slowly flutter shut.

A hand gently touches my cheek, a soft and almost unnoticeable caress. A voice speaks to me, cold yet comforting. “Do you really want it to end here?”

My consciousness is rapidly fading. They lift my hand in a firm, reassuring grip. The touch of their fingers is hot against my icy skin.

It takes all that I have and more to whisper a barely audible reply. “No.”

“Then it won’t.”

M y body feels heavy. Too heavy to move. The insides of my eyelids are red—such a beautiful yet sinister red. I taste and smell blood. A tangy copper on my lips and tongue, yet it’s almost sweet.

Despite not being able to move, I feel the cold touch of metal under me. Whispers reach my ears. I can still hear. But I don’t understand the words being spoken.

A strange, soothing heat spreads through my body. It nearly lulls me back to sleep, and I drift away, returning to the darkness from which I have awoken. Then there is a sting, and I see my naked body spread out underneath me. Pale. Thin. Broken. Unmoving. Dead?

Figures move around it. Figures against the red walls, a red floor, a red ceiling. Red everywhere. They make incisions in my wrists and insert tubes. Dark liquid is drained from me. My blood—every last drop—is caught in a metal tub under the table.

The shimmer of more metal catches my attention, and a sharp, rounded knife presses against me. Then, my skin is sliced off in careful, thin strips, exposing the muscles underneath. I’m being flayed—possibly alive, for I can’t tell despite the way my body looks. Despite how it is being treated.

Once all my skin is removed, the knife is exchanged for a much cruder instrument that I’m unable to name or place. My chest is sawed open, my ribs cracked to provide access to my inner workings. My organs are pulled from deep inside and placed in glass bowls. Lastly, my heart is removed, and I swear that it’s still beating, a soft thump-thump that I want to hang on to like a lifeline. The sight of it entrances me, and I find myself unable to look away while it’s placed in its own glass bowl.

The tubes in my wrists are taken out, and the tub is moved from under the table to just beside it. Glass vials clink as they are emptied in the tub, the contents mixed into the blood. A voice speaks over the mixture, and a black shimmer settles itself into the concoction. My blood twists and turns .

The pieces of skin are submerged into the tub, until the black shimmer sticks to them. Then, my organs are bathed in it as well. Lastly, my body is placed into the tub with great care, and it absorbs the blood. It sucks every last drop back inside, slowly but steadily. The whole procedure is fascinating yet monstrous to behold.

Once the fluids are absorbed, my body is once again placed on the table. My organs are put back, and my chest is pushed into place. The muscles are stitched down with a shimmering black thread, much like the shimmer of the blood. The same thread is utilized to sew the strips of flesh back onto my body.

The work is meticulous and seems to take forever. When it’s finally done, my body looks like me again. But even from a distance, it’s clear that it’s wrong. So very wrong. Something tugs at me, and I descend, as if I’m being called back into my body. I feel watched and catch a pair of yellow eyes looking straight at me. Fear fills me and, in that moment, I know that death would have been kinder than whatever awaits me.