Whispers of a Former Life: Episode 14

This was originally posted as chapter 13 by mistake it originally included chapter 13’s image which has been corrected with the proper chapter 13. If you are reading this story not as they come out you can just ignore this and read the story as normal. If you are reading this as it comes out. Just note you read this originally as chapter 13. So you will want to read the actual chapter 13 for today’s posting.  Chapter 15 will be posted at its regular time. I posted the actual chapter 13 early because of the mistake.

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The carpet clung to her. 

It wasn’t just the weave anymore, it was the filth. The tiny particles that once floated harmlessly in sunbeams or settled invisibly between vacuum passes were now a second skin. Dust and specks of dirt matted to her arms and calves, the fibers scraping faint abrasions into her soft new form. Every step stirred up a dry scent that curled in her nose: old skin cells, pollen, fibers of clothing. Things she never would’ve noticed before. 

Charity paused, lifting one trembling leg. 

Her foot was gray. Not in color, but in what had latched to her, like she’d waded through ash. Her arms weren’t much better. Her once-pristine body, manicured and moisturized with care, was a canvas of grime. The space between her toes itched. Her knees burned from repeated contact with the abrasive carpet terrain. 

She had always thought her room was immaculate. Spotless. Perfect. 

But now, looking at it from this scale, it wasn’t clean at all. It was a desert of shed human waste, dust, lint, hair. An environment she’d lived above, never within. 

She shivered. 

The temperature hadn’t changed, but her body had. What once felt comfortable, an ambient seventy-two degrees—was now cool, even cold. There was a constant faint draft she couldn’t place, always brushing past her skin like the breath of something unseen. She hugged her arms around herself, squeezing warmth into her own sides. 

She didn’t want to admit it. 

But Sara would love seeing her like this. 

“She’d have some smug remark,” Charity muttered aloud, her voice so small it barely registered against the stillness. “She’d gloat. She’d smile that little smirk and act like it wasn’t even worth a fight.” 

She imagined Sara’s laugh, amplified and huge. What would her voice even sound like from down here? God, even her breath would feel warm. Wet. Heavy. 

The thought made her wince. 

As she reached her dresser, Charity reached out and steadied herself against the dark wood. The grain was so textured now, so alive beneath her hands, more like bark than furniture. She traced it absently, fingertips trailing across the polished surface. 

It still smelled like cedar oil. 

That surprised her. She hadn’t noticed it in years. But at this size, scents hung in the air like memories. Stronger. Truer. 

She tilted her head back and looked up at the monolith. 

She remembered picking it out. She had nearly given up after weeks of searching, boutiques, showrooms, catalogs that never matched the color in person. Then she’d seen it at a dusty flea market under a sagging tent, half-hidden behind a cracked mirror. It had felt like fate. She’d paid a carpenter to restore it, sand it down, reinforce the legs, replace the old brass handles with custom matte ones. 

Now, it loomed like a ruin from a forgotten civilization. Familiar, yet unreachable. 

Another monument to a life I can’t live anymore. 

She turned away, her legs protesting. Her arms ached from using them to balance, to pull, to climb and drag and resist the ever-tangling weave beneath her. The strain of movement had become constant, a dull roar in her muscles. But she couldn’t stop. Not now. Not when the door—her one sliver of escape, was so close. 

And still, even as her body fought to move forward, her mind dragged her backward. 

Voices filled her thoughts. 

They weren’t imaginary. They were real. Sharp-edged and broken, replayed from old hallways and classrooms. The sobs she ignored. The pleas she mocked. The names she gave to people she decided were beneath her. Fat. Cow. Sloth. Pig. Words that weren’t meant to hurt, but did. 

She had laughed at their pain. Laughed. 

Because it was never personal. Not to her. 

They were background players. The disposable cast in the sitcom of her charmed life. She was the lead. The star. And her world bent to her whims. 

Or it had. 

Now the voices wouldn’t stop. They looped in her head like curses. Echoes of people who had cried as she smiled. The powerless who had fallen silent under her scorn. 

And they were the ones who stood tall now. 

Immune. 

Safe. 

Human. 

It stung. Not just emotionally, but cosmically. She could have made peace with her parents’ vulnerability. They were older. Their generation was always being replaced. But she, she was young. Beautiful. Sharp. She had her whole future ahead of her. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. 

It wasn’t supposed to end beneath the people she ruled over. 

The children of secretaries. The sons of janitors. The nobodies who’d filed her family’s paperwork, carried their groceries, fixed their cars. Their bloodlines would survive untouched. 

And hers? 

Extinction. 

Her family’s money, their power,it was dust now. The kind she could barely crawl through. 

She looked forward. The door loomed, still cracked. Still possible. She just had to keep moving. 

She just had to find someone who hadn’t already decided she deserved this. 

Someone she hadn’t broken. 

Someone who might, by some miracle, offer her a mercy that she never would have given in return. 

And maybe,  if she was lucky, there was still a chance to be more than this. 

More than a regret. 

More than an underbred. 

More than a forgotten speck of dirt in the carpet. 

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