Chapter 72-Nightmare on loop

Chapter 72: 72-Nightmare on loop

In the hours of the evening, Amara didn’t know when she had fallen into slumber.

One moment, she had been lying in bed, debating on what step she should take next to bring her closer to Nathaniel and the next, she was back there in her past life.

The world around her was dark. Smoke filled the air, burning her lungs with every breath, while the smell of blood, seawater, and something metallic hung heavily around her.

Her clothes were soaked, her body weak, and her hands trembled as she struggled to hold on to Nathaniel.

She could still feel the rough deck beneath her knees, still remember how the splintered wood had cut into her palms when she shielded Nathaniel.

Aymara looked around frantically. "Where am I?" Then she saw them: Dylan and Sarah, standing together like they were badly in love. The two people she had once trusted more than anyone.

Dylan’s face was cold while Sarah was smiling. That smile made Aymara’s blood run cold.

She remembered that smile from the last night of her life: the way Sarah had watched her beg, as if her fear were nothing more than entertainment. "No..." She stumbled backward. "No, no, no..."

She knew what came next. She had lived it once, and she had died from it once, yet her mind forced her to experience it all over again.

Dylan looked at her with an expression devoid of the love he had once pretended to have.

"You’ve outlived your usefulness." Sarah stepped closer. "We’re not going north, Aymara," his voice sounded. "Because the ship doesn’t belong to you anymore."

Aymara shook her head. She hated the way her name sounded when he was the one uttering it. She hated it.

"Dylan and I have loved each other for years, Aymara. The one who isn’t loved is the other woman... you were the other woman, Aymara!" Sarah laughed. "Dylan and I love each other."

Aymara’s heart pounded. "Dylan..." She reached toward him instinctively, just as she had that night, when she had still believed he would take her hand and pull her to safety. "You said you’d protect me," she found herself saying.

Dylan’s expression didn’t change before he smiled. The smile was not warmly or lovingly, but cruelly.

"I changed my mind."

Aymara’s breath caught. The words struck with the same finality they had before, sealing her fate before the explosion ever came.

Beneath the terror, another wound opened: she had heard that promise before, from Nathaniel, and she had been the one to break it.

She had chosen Dylan’s false protection over Nathaniel’s faithful love. "Wait..." She was dragged away by Pete and Marko. "Please." The scene shifted, and suddenly she was standing aboard the ship again.

The ocean raged around them. Waves towered above the deck, and the sky was black. Dylan and Sarah were walking away, and Aymara screamed after them. "Don’t leave me!" she cried out.

They didn’t turn around. "Dylan!" Nothing. "Sarah!" Nothing. She ran after them, but her feet slipped, and she fell.

The last time, she had watched them disappear while thinking only of survival and vowing to change her fate.

Now, another face flashed through her mind. She thought of Nathaniel waiting somewhere behind her, trusting her to come back. The memory cut deeper than the cold water: she had once been the person who walked away, leaving him with the same empty silence she now feared.

When she looked up, they were standing at the edge of the deck, watching her. Sarah smiled, then Dylan pushed the trigger. Aymara’s eyes widened. "No!"

The explosion came again this time and it showed no mercy.

BOOM!

The world disappeared in fire, and the force threw her backward. Pain tore through her body as she screamed, "NO!"

Unlike the first time, she didn’t die immediately. Her own voice echoed around her. She tried to crawl away, but there was nowhere to go. Another explosion came, then another, and the ship broke apart around her.

The ocean swallowed everything. Aymara felt herself falling and falling repeatedly like her life was on loop.

Her hands reached desperately for anything to save her but there was nothing. She remembered the cold closing over her head, remembered realizing that no one was coming, and remembered the terrible thought that had followed her into the dark.

She had chosen Dylan, and Nathaniel had been left behind. She had not merely lost him; she had abandoned him, convinced herself she could return later, and left him to bear the consequences of her choice alone.

"Help me!" No one answered. "Please!" The water closed over her head. She couldn’t breathe, her lungs burned, and her body grew colder.

Somewhere through the darkness, she heard Sarah laughing. Aymara’s eyes snapped open, and she gasped as her upper body jerked violently off the mattress. "Ah...!"

She sucked in a desperate breath, her heart hammering against her ribs. For several seconds, she couldn’t understand where she was.

Her eyes darted around the room: dark walls, soft bedding, and the faint glow of the ship’s emergency lights.

After a full minute of breathing frantically, she recognized her room, her ship and the new life she had secured not.

She was not in the old ship. Dylan and Sarah were far away from her and incapable of hurting her again. Aymara pressed both hands against her chest, her breathing ragged.

"I’m... alive." She swallowed. "I’m alive." But the nightmare wasn’t finished with her.

The moment she laid back down and closed her eyes, the explosion returned. Aymara violently shook her head. "No." She tried to lie back down, but her body refused to relax.

She turned onto her side, then onto her back, then curled into herself beneath the blankets but sleep wouldn’t come peacefully. Every time her eyelids grew heavy, she saw fire and Nathaniel dying with her.

Every time she heard the faint hum of the ship, she remembered the explosion. When she felt the mattress beneath her, she remembered falling into the ocean. And as she imagined someone walking away, she saw Nathaniel’s back disappearing through that closing door. Her breathing became uneven again.

"No..." She clutched the blanket. "They’re not here." Her voice trembled. "Dylan is gone. Sarah is gone. They can’t hurt me anymore."

Yet her body didn’t believe her. Cold sweat covered her forehead, and Aymara tossed and turned beneath the sheets, her hair becoming damp and sticking against her temples.

"No! This is just a nightmare!"