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The sound can’t break me if I’m already in pieces.
The tightness peels down, freeing me from its snug embrace in skin-tingling increments that make my chest swell and my lids flutter closed—a deep breath pouring into me like it’s my first in weeks. I clench my hand around the jewel, squeezing. I know I’m a monster—that this pretty skin has split to release something truly horrific. I just hate that something so wrong feels so good. So natural and free and me.
My skin begins to tear in agonizing increments, cracking me open one searing split at a time. A flock of sizzling death untangles from that cleft inside my chest, and my mouth falls open, muscles immobilized by the blazing trails shredding me apart as I scream the howls of a hundred tortured souls rattling the chains of their mortality.
Delicate black sepals curl back, revealing a cluster of crystal petals huddled together in a shimmering swirl. A tiny, crystal bloom. Shock and confusion wrestle inside me, but one overriding emotion overpowers them both.
