7 DAYS UNTIL THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX, NIGHT
Rives won’t talk to me, or look at me. He believes I chose Nil over him. How can he not see that I have no choice?
I wish he could remember his own words. I think maybe Nil is your destiny, so how can accepting your destiny be selfish? he asked me the last time we were here. A different hour, a different Nil, but his words still rang true.
How could he forget? How has he lost sight of me?
My entire life has revolved around Nil, even when I didn’t know the island existed. My destiny is to end this place, to end with this place.
To die. Here.
I don’t have a choice.
Nil does have a heart; I know that now. It’s black. Diseased. The darkness I’ve been seeing is the essence of Nil; it’s cold and dark and cruel and dead. I see it now as never before. I’m the only one who can defeat it, because I’m the only one who truly understands it. Nil’s heart beats with stolen life, powerful and sickening. It must be stopped.
And somehow, we’re connected.
We both live, we both die.
It was Nil’s plan all along.
If I had my journal, this is what I would write. Instead I write in my head, letting the words flow in my private room, spilling ink the color of Nil’s heart on every white wall, erasing the lines each day and starting again. Pouring it all out, in my head.
I have seven days left.
I will make it.
I will write Nil’s end.
My name is Skye Bracken and this is my destiny.