Poetry by Rowan Evans

I wake to a hollow silence.
The air, stale and thick —
A metallic whisper clings to my tongue.

I sit up, slowly,
The world tilts —
Gravity drags me down.

Hands trembling, smeared crimson.
Not mine. Not mine?
A wet sheen drying against my skin.

I search the shadows.
No answers, only echoes —
A table overturned, its legs jutting like broken bones.
Shattered glass glitters beneath the pale slant of moonlight,
The floorboards slick with something darker.

What happened here?

I stumble, knees buckling.
The walls lean too close, closing in.
A jagged mirror, cracked down its center,
Bleeding with the memory of what it saw.

Fingers dragged through the silver,
Bloody prints left behind —
Evidence of trembling hands. My hands.

But why?

A rhythmic drip pulses in the distance,
Like a heartbeat, like a clock ticking down.
The faucet cries into the silence,
Each droplet sending ripples through my chest.

I follow the sound.
Through the ruins of my own making —
Papers torn, plaster fractured,
Ghosts of fists that met the wall.

The copper tang grows stronger,
A bitter perfume that lingers.
Splashes of red smear the hallway,
Trailing, leading — or was it fleeing?

My reflection stares from the shattered glass.
Wide eyes. Hollow.
A stranger with my face.

Memory stirs.
Fragments flicker like dying light.

There were two.
Me and who?

A flash —
A scream caught mid-air.
Hands locked in desperation.
A voice, begging. Mine or theirs?

I reach for the memory,
But it splinters.
The shards fall away.

Only silence remains.

And the question.
What have I done?

Journey into the Hexverse

Continue the haunting path through the shattered reality of B.D. Nightshade’s series:

Through the Shattered Glass: Before the Glass Shattered
— See what happened before the Glass Shattered.

Through the Shattered Glass II: Fractured Nightmare
— Dive further into the mystery.