She wakes up, and the world shatters into fragments - sharp, aching, piercing into her skull. Her head is heavy, humming with pain, as if a searing knot has settled inside, ravenously devouring the remnants of sleep. She doesn’t know why. Perhaps it’s because she fell asleep too late, too deeply, as if sinking into a viscous darkness from which no one returns the same.
Or maybe the reason lies in the monster that dwells in her heart - a warm, rotting cocoon where it grows, sinking its claws into her peace. It feeds on her anxieties, on the words she never speaks, on the fears that never find a way out. And now it is hungry. Now it tears through her from within, demanding more.
She squeezes her eyes shut, but it only makes things worse. The pain does not fade. The silence does not save her. And the monster, it seems, is smiling.