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Ragatha.
My name settles bitterly on my tongue. Not even the softness of its letters keeps it from staining my thoughts with falseness – and the feeling that it only seals off a hollowness inside myself. A name is meant to carry the meaning of your identity. That’s what everybody says. And yet…why does mine feel crooked in my head? Why does it refuse to fill the void and make me forget the memory of a life that survived only as an appearance?
These sensations… they are not unfamiliar. They are a part of me. No matter how many times I toss and turn, no matter how intensely I focus on the brittle silence of the room, the feeling that something is missing never leaves. Something was taken from me and placed… not where it belongs. Something pretended to be mine and then disappeared into the depths of forgetting, while I remain trapped in a constant, pointless search, convinced it still belongs to me. Even as my eyelids grow heavy and my body numbs beneath the weight of the sheets, I know this need will not leave me.
It’s only a postponement.
When I close my eyes, the nothingness pulls me inward, and the darkness surrounding me becomes blinding. It buries me beneath a static blanket; the stale smell floods my lungs. Thousands of colored flames burst from the surroundings. Then… they stretch their arms, wrap around me… and drown me. Fear pierces my body the moment I feel the ground vanish beneath my feet. The darkness seems to promises to soften the fall, but hope shatters under the weight of my body as it lands on a cold, flat, indifferent surface. Yet I feel no pain. Or maybe… I have simply forgotten what pain is.
As soon as I stand up, lights ignites above me. They are small but bright enough to make the space clearer, inviting me to look at what they reveal. They call to me without a voice.
Then, like a flame before my eyes, a heavy, massive light snaps on. It envelops me, and isolates me from the rest of the darkness. Crackling sounds echo from everywhere, like a multitude of sparks. They collide with one another and gradually grow, thickening until I no longer perceive them as sounds, but as pressure against my eardrums. Even with my hands pressed against the ears, they might rupture if this does not stop. Through the dizziness, I strain to find the source of this torment.
Behind me…
eyes.
A tide of eyes in the black sea, too many to count. They do not blink. They do not move. They are glossy.
They stalk me. They pin me in place.
Someone clears their throat.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.”
That voice seeps into my veins like venom, with a slowness that coils tight in my throat. The light sketches an almost human silhouette, moving lazily toward the edge of a structure made of rotting wood. Each step leaves behind an overwhelming creak, a stark contrast to the dry silence that had settled. And yet, the closer it gets to the edge, the less human it seems. I do not see it all at once; I only notice the darkness tearing, yielding to it, as though persuaded to let something emerge from its protection. But what comes into view does not seem to have ever been hidden or protected—only covered. A white line slowly takes shape. A smile. Then the eyes. They seize me without touching me. They are windows set into a thick, rigid mask, crossed by… teeth.
A cold pierces my skin.
It’s…
Caine.
The masses erupt into almost hysterical applause. Uncontrollable cheers, intended to please, are yet incapable of convincing Caine to unlock his facial components from the rigidity of his expression.
“Reveal.”
The sound of fabric behind him is too perceptible. The strip of material, soaked in a dense, tired red, is pulled with a dry rub across the rail holding it.
My gaze clings to the movement of the curtain, desperate to catch what lies beyond. I might have overlooked the tension gathering behind my eyes, the burning at the corners… if a fog had not settled over my vision like fog, demanding a blink.
Only when the red curtain gives way to the deep darkness of the space, and that darkness dissolves under the timid flicker of yellow light, does a figure reveal itself from the center of the stage – one of purely human beauty.
Something ancient within me has finally been called by its name, like a breeze lifting, for a second, the weight of existence inside the circus - a recognition that carries with it a strange fascination, born from the memory of a world I once knew, where humans existed naturally. Tsk. It is the beauty I lost long ago; along with it, the meaning of the word meant to define it –“human” – has collapsed in this purgatory, like a label erased by the wind or by a simple slip of the hand. Tsk. I can only see her back. It’s rigid. Her shoulders seem locked, anchored to her spine, pulling her posture into an unnatural shape. Though unnatural is too strong a word – unnatural only to those unfamiliar with the reflex of holding oneself tense until, eventually, all that remains is the pain of bones yielding under constant pressure, or muscles slowly atrophying, losing the strength to maintain the appearance. All that until you’re trapped alone in the room, and its silence presses you down as it watches the façade you’ve fought to keep so long rot away beneath you—
Tsk. She wears a simple dress, stripped of any excess. Her light-colored hair, arranged with deliberate care, falls neatly, untouched by haste or negligence. She does not move. To me it seems that she doesn’t even breathe. She is exactly what someone becomes when they have never been allowed to be anything else. Tsk. My own hair bears no resemblance to the softness of hers - mine was manufactured to stay fixed, hanging twisted like ropes (or licorice, take it however you like). Her elegance feels misplaced in this space, like a correct note in a composition gone wrong. Tsk. Her detachment from her surroundings grants her a certain… intangibility.
Tsk.
Huh?
Do I know her?
Tsk.
Know…
Tsk.
Know?
Tsk. No. Tsk. No. Tsk.
No.
I know her.
She… no… she cannot be anyone else.
c
o
r
r
e
c
t
Caine’s voice still echoes in the depths of my being. I can no longer perceive it anywhere but inside myself; it did not come from a specific place, but from the very structure of the space itself. That word is meant to confirm, yet it is nothing more than the end of the ambiguity that had been holding me together.
Air fills my chest, and with it comes an old resonance that scrapes my body from the inside before my mind can even name it – like a sensation of poisoning reawakened by the residual echo of my past. I hear no sound. I feel a command. A command that contracts my muscles without permission.
“Do not have fear, child. It’s only your mother.”
My mother?
The word mother falls over me without an image. I try to force a contour into existence - not out of desire, but… obligation - as if memory would function properly only if it surrenders to my insistence.
Because if there was nothing to begin with,
then there was nothing even to forget.
I cling to the idea with rigid, almost painful focus, searching for a feature, an asymmetry, an imperfection to prove that a face existed before it was replaced by numbness. But the thought slips away, refusing to anchor itself.
“You… don’t remember what she looks like?”
His gaze presses down on me with an intensity that makes my skin tighten. My breath escapes in a sound that is neither a sob nor a protest, now suspended in the old air, thick with dust and the scent of things untouched for too long.
Through the fog that invades my vision, I catch sight of her movement. She is facing me. I want to stop looking at her, but my eyes just won't obey me. I unconsciously count the passing seconds, my chest tightening, waiting for the moment her face will become visible - when her absence will no longer matter, as I'll be able to see her with my very own eyes.
Her face walks into the light… a gasp comes out of my mouth faster than I can stop it. And it's not like her features are weird or foreign. It's that they've been erased. The skin is smooth, evenly pale, with no expression, as if someone had decided that any sign of life was an unnecessary risk. She's only a lifeless mask, a mannequin set in the "right" position.
A murmur ripples through the audience - not awe, not admiration. Low, sharp-edged voices that do not need clarity to be understood – they pass judgement.
I try to retreat, slowly and uncertainly, stepping inch by inch toward the edge between light and darkness. It should be enough for the light to disappear. Exposure is conditioned only by position, right? However, my body bumps into something solid. Unavoidable. The air does not change. The light refuses to let go of me. My heart is pounding. I tip my head just slightly, casting a quick look over my shoulder to see what I’ve backed into.
It wasn't a presence. It wasn't an object. It was the edge of light.
It’s a cage made of clarity.
"Hey, just make something up."
The whisper passes through my hearing, but it does not come from outside. It nests beneath my sternum, hot and intrusive. A knot rises in my throat.
“I can,” I murmur, but the voice is not mine. “I just—”
I try.
The skin of her face begins to move, rippling into shifting moulds. Like an unstable surface, her features rise and overlap at once. Her face almost makes sense, then contradicts itself. Too many eyes. Mouths stretched too tight. Fragments of faces refusing to settle, sliding over one another like warped reflections.
The audience leans forward.
The movement stops.
The face stabilizes.
It’s not hers.
It is mine.
Me.
My eyes stare back—too wide.
My body curls in on itself—small, smaller.
My mouth is caught between explanation and plea.
The resemblance is complete, violent, impossible to contest.
Something inside me fractures.
Not a person. Only a continuation.
The audience explodes into laughter. Fingers point at me. Mocking applause, unashamed, as if urging my failure to go on.
I cannot look away. The faceless woman – the woman with my face – does not move, wearing my image like a distorted translation of my own self.
Is this the form in which I am read? The only one they see?
I clench my hands so hard that the ache spreads up my stuffing. The thought felt like it had carved me open. They look at me as if they know me, as if they already know what I think, what I believe or what i fear—
Long arms close around my shoulders. The warmth of the body is too vivid to be comforting. Someone is behind me, close enough that his chest presses into my back. I tilt my head just to meet another pair of eyes – but this time, they are large, yellow, gleaming. He looks at me firmly, truly, in a way he has just recently begun to. His gaze traces my face, then settles, inevitably, on the button eye.
He raises a hand almost absentmindedly, never looking away from that spot. His fingers touch the smooth surface, and something turns over in my stomach – not pain. Something else.
“Does it hurt?” he murmurs, absently feeling what should have been an eye, more focused on the sensation beneath his fingertips than on my answer.
I can't answer. My body refuses to move, frozen in place as he leans closer, his hand lingering, thumb rubbing lightly over the button-eye as if testing how well it's attached.
“Take it off,” he says casually. Almost kindly.
He leans in until the space between us ceases to exist, his lips now beside my ear.
“It won't hide you,” he whispers.
Jax's fingers curl, as if he's considering pulling.
I try to scream.
But the world breaks.
I finally tear free from this dream, with a dissonance that wracks my body without warning, leaving me gasping for the musty air of the room. My mind functions by inertia, like a structure numbing itself in order to self-regulate. The room is the same, but something in me has been ripped out and trapped inside that spotlight, and something else never fully returned, too heavy to carry forward. The hollow in my chest is not panic, not fear in the strict sense, but an absence born when something in you is forced to explain itself before it is understood.
I remain motionless, unwillingly counting the spaces between breaths, aware of every small adjustment of my body in the bed, of the weight of my name, which I feel like an inscription stuck to a cracked container.
Ragatha.
I repeat it in my mind—not to calm myself, but to check whether it still works as mine. Whether it still fits me.
Perhaps… there is safety in not knowing who I was. Knowing it would mean I was only ever hurt…
The cold, neutral surface of the pillow - incapable of asking what’s wrong - is exactly what I seek, and when I press my face into it, I understand that this is not a search for comfort, but a poor substitute for presence, something that mimics the shape of support without its substance.
Tears escape in short bursts, soaking instantly into the fabric, leaving on my cheeks only a hint of the dream’s lingering heat. How sad that it has not ended. It continues, persistent beyond sleep. I am not crying to be heard. I am crying because my body has decided something must be expelled - something my mind cannot yet put into words.
I sense movement behind me, and when a hand settles against me, I think it is an illusion. But the touch is real enough to make me flinch. Not from fear. The hand withdraws immediately, but not completely - just enough to give me space. Probably.
I inhale deeply and turn.
He looks at me, his eyes still clouded from tiredness. He says nothing. Neither do I. For a moment, another image overlays this one - his gaze from before, sharpened by disappointment, tightened by a pain that did not know where to settle. The words spoken then spared no one. I felt their aftermath on my skin, and I know he carried them no more lightly - they were our shared poison. It flowed from both of us and burned the same.
But now, none of that remains. Only a quiet attention, checking whether I am still here. The concern in his eyes is so clear it distorts everything else without effort. Even so, my body remains tense; the feeling of exposure does not vanish. It only shifts in intensity.
“Sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“It’s alright. I’ve just come.”
Jax looks away from my face for only a moment, then returns.
I move closer without haste and rest my forehead against his chest, wiping the wetness with my palm. No need for tears. His heart beats steadily, indifferent to the chaos inside me. That beat does something strange to me: it does not calm me, but it holds me in shape.
It has always been this way, and always will be—he gives me a rhythm when mine wavers. Shame coils tight inside me, urging words of apology for what i let crumble between us. It was a desperate, and probably, a very weak attempt to undo the harm of letting the past rule me.
“Forgive me,” I say at last, my voice smaller than I intended. “What I said earlier—I didn’t mean it—”
“I know.”
He does not say it as a concession. He says it as a fact. As if he has been holding this sentence inside himself all along and has finally found a safe place to set it down. The air trembles in my chest. I try to say something else - anything to assure, to explain - but my voice breaks before it can take form. The tears gather again, burning from the inside before spilling down my cheeks like a breached dam. I raise my hand to my mouth reflexively, trying to stop something that has already decided itself.
“It's in the past, dolly.”
He shifts closer, hesitant, as if testing unstable ground. He lifts his hand, lets it hover uncertainly between us, then, after a small, guilty pause, places it on my back. His palm is warm. The movement is too stiff, over-calculated, but the pressure is real. His arm slides from my back to my shoulders, pulling me into an awkward embrace, a little too tight - but desperately necessary. I bury my face in his fur before I can think. It smells faintly of him, of something familiar, and that makes me cry even harder.
I match my breathing to his without meaning to. It takes effort. But it feels good.
I stay there, pressed against him, long enough to realize that nothing inside me has truly shifted.
The hollow is still there.
But for once, it does not demand to be filled. I stay in his embrace –not out of need, but out of choice.
And perhaps, that's the only truth I can hold on to now.