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Evening settled over Alfea in slow, creeping shadows.
Dinner had ended nearly half an hour ago, and the school was beginning to quiet. Lights glowed warmly behind the dormitory windows as students drifted back to their suites with books tucked beneath their arms and unfinished assignments waiting on their desks. Laughter still echoed faintly from somewhere deeper within the campus, softened by distance and the thickening mist rolling across the grounds.
Outside, lanterns lined the stone pathways in pools of dim gold, their light hazy beneath the low hanging fog. Cold clung to everything it touched. To the grass silvered with dew. To the dark iron fencing surrounding the training fields. To the breath drawn into aching lungs.
The training grounds sat near empty at this hour.
Four figures occupied the largest combat mat positioned at the center of the field. Three adults.
And one student.
Bloom Peters hit the ground hard enough to rattle the breath from her chest.
Pain exploded through her shoulder as her body struck the mat, the impact jarring up her spine and into the base of her skull. For a brief, humiliating second, black spots crowded her vision. She ground her teeth together hard enough for her jaw to ache, swallowing the cry threatening to tear free from her throat.
Above her, boots scraped against the mat.
Waiting and watching, judging more than anything.
This wasn’t new to Bloom.
Four nights a week, after dinner ended and the rest of Alfea settled into study halls and shared suits, Bloom reported to the training grounds for combat instruction. This wasn’t magic training, no magic was allowed during these sessions. No, the training was entirely focused on combat, hand to hand, close quarters and endurance.
Andreas stood at the center of the mat like a fortress carved from stone. Tall. Broad shouldered. Unmoving in the way trained soldiers often were; every ounce of violence held carefully under control until the exact moment it was needed. Even at rest he looked imposing, his posture rigid, his expression unreadable beneath the sharp lines of his face.
He never treated Bloom like a student.
There were no pauses to explain technique. No patience for mistakes. No consideration for the fact that only months ago Bloom had been living in the First World without any combat training at all.
To Andreas, bruises were lessons.
Pain was correction.
He taught through action, and although Boom was learning, she knew it wasn’t as fast as they wanted.
“Again,” the single word cut through the cold evening air.
Bloom closed her eyes briefly, not out of defiance, but to gather herself.
Her arms trembled as she pushed against the mat, every muscled protesting the movement. The ache in her shoulder sharpened immediately, hot and throbbing beneath her skin, but she forced herself upright anyway. One knee anchored against the mat first. Then the other.
Slowly, she lifted her head.
And saw them.
The only other two adults standing at the edge of the field.
Watching.
Rosalind stood several feet from the mat. Her hands rested neatly behind her back, posture immaculate. Wearing her tan overcoat, her hair pulled back, she was severe and cold, every inch the soldier she intended to ensure the students of Alfea became.
Newly Re-appointed headmistress of Alfea, Bloom would have figured her to busy to oversee the training of one little fairy, but that wasn’t the case. At least two times a week, Rosalind was present.
She observed the training session with quiet detachment, as though she were overseeing an academic exercise rather than watching a sixteen year old girl being driven into the ground time after time.
Nothing in her expression shifted when Bloom hit the mat. She never showed emotions, not concern, not sympathy, no anger, nothing. The only emotions she did show, was disappointment.
Beside her stood Saul Silva, rigid and silent in the dim light. Years of discipline kept him still, but not unreadable.
Bloom noticed the way his jaw tightened every time Andreas struck her.
The way one of his hands flexed once at his side before stilling again.
The way his eyes followed her whenever she struggled back to her feet.
He never spoke.
Not when Andreas slammed her onto the mat hard enough to force the air from her lungs.
Not when his kicks would hit so hard, Bloom would black out.
Silva said nothing, but the fury in his eyes burned hotter than Bloom’s fire ever could. Furry and something worse beneath it. Grief.
Bloom knew he wasn’t standing there by choice.
This was not an observation. It was a punishment. A silent, deliberate cruelty crafted for the man and at first Bloom didn’t know why. She wasn’t important to Saul Silva, Sky was. She was a student. Now she knows why. Knew why Silva was forced to watch while Bloom was broken down piece by piece beneath Andreas’s hands, over and over again, until bruises became routine and pain became expectation.
And still, he could do nothing except stand there and watch it happen.
Bloom dragged the back of her hand across her mouth, smearing blood against bruised skin before forcing herself upright once more.
Her legs trembled beneath her weight.
Every part of her hurt. Her ribs ached every time she breathed, her shoulder burned from where Andreas had wrenched it earlier, and her palms stung raw from repeated impacts against the mat. But she pushed the pain aside the same way she had learned to push aside fear.
She took a few breaths before raising her hands again.
Across from her, Andreas circled slowly, his boots scraping against the edge of the mat as he watched her recover. Assessing. Measuring. Like he was trying to determine how much more pressure she could survive before finally breaking apart.
“No hesitation this time,” he said coldly. “You hesitate in a real fight, you die.”
Bloom swallowed against the copper taste of blood coating her tongue. “I know.”
A sharp smile ghosted across Andreas’s face, humorless and thin. “You think you know.”
Then he moved. Fast enough that Bloom barely registered the shift before his leg came toward her ribs.
She reacted on instinct.
Her forearm slammed into the strike hard enough to jar her entire arm numb, but she blocked it. Andreas immediately pivoted into another attack, a sharp strike aimed toward her shoulder.
Bloom stumbled backward, barely avoiding it. Not graceful. Not clean. But she avoided it.
Surprise flickered briefly through Andreas’s expression. The next strike came harder.
Bloom ducked beneath it, breath ragged as she twisted out of reach instead of meeting the blow head on. Andreas reached for her arm — she pulled free. A kick swept toward her legs — she jumped back just enough to avoid losing her footing.
For several fleeting seconds, she survived.
Bloom could feel it happening now, buried beneath the exhaustion and pain. Her body beginning to react before her mind fully caught up. Every bruise teaching her something Andreas never bothered explaining aloud.
At the edge of the field, Silva shifted slightly. Bloom saw it from the corner of her eye. Saw the moment realization crossed his face.
She was improving and for a heartbeat, something like hope stirred.
Andreas saw it too. Which was why the next hit came brutal enough to remind her exactly who controlled this fight.
A knee drove hard into her stomach. Pain detonated through her body.
The air vanished from her lungs as Andreas grabbed her shoulder and threw her violently back onto the mat. Bloom hit hard enough for the world to blur at the edges, coughing sharply as agony ripped through her ribs and chest.
For a second she could only curl inward helplessly, struggling to drag air back into her lungs.
Above her, Andreas stared down without pity.
Waiting to see if she would stand again.
“Stand down,”
Rosalind spoke calmly from the edge of the field.
Not sharp. Not angry, but Bloom knew it was far worse.
She remained curled against the mat, one arm wrapped tightly around her stomach as she struggled to breathe through the pain twisting beneath her ribs. Her hair clung damply to her forehead, just like her long sleeve clung to her body from sweat.
Rosalind stepped forward at an unhurried pace, the heels of her boots clicking softly against the stone bordering the mat.
“Pity,” She mused,”Seems your lack of discipline is not limited to your magic.”
Bloom shut her eyes. The word striking harder than Andrea’s knee had.
“Clearly Farah Dowling coddled you,” Rosalind continued smoothly. “Though I suppose that has always been her greatest weakness. Sentiment. Attachment. An insistence on treating students like children instead of preparing them for the realities of this world.”
At the mention of Ms. Dowling’s name, Bloom, felt her chest tighten sharply.
“It is in your best interest to improve Bloom.” Rosalind reminded her. “Or you may find yourself transferred into… alternate educational systems.”
A brief pause, deliberate and measured. Like she wanted Bloom to truly absorb the threat before continuing.
The words burrowed under her skin. Improve. As if she hadn’t been breaking herself open every night just to survive and she knew what Rosalind meant by an alternate educational system.
The Solarian Military. Rosalind was threatening to send her to the Solarian military for training.
To Rosalind, she was not a student, to Rosalind she was a soldier. Something obedient, a weapon in disguise. Every bruise, every dislocated joint, every sleepless night spent aching beneath blankets, it was all part of the same lesson.
Break first, then rebuild.
“You will report to the training grounds tomorrow at thirteen hundred hours for your first weapons session.”
Not class.
Not instruction.
A session.
“Let us hope,” Rosalind said softly, “that you prove slightly less disappointing there.”
The disappointment in her voice sounded practiced. Old. Like Rosalind had already decided Bloom’s failures long before Bloom herself had the chance to make them. Practiced, polished, perfected — like she’d been disappointed in Bloom long before Bloom ever existed.
Silence settled over the field once more.
The world narrowed slowly around Bloom until all she could feel was the cold dampness seeping through the training mat beneath her back and the distant pulse of blood roaring in her ears.
For a moment, Bloom considered staying where she was.
The mat beneath her was cold and damp, the ache in her body so deep it no longer felt confined to bruises or strained muscles. It settled into her bones now, heavy and exhausting. If she closed her eyes again, she thought she might simply fall asleep there beneath the mist and lantern light.
The thought vanished the moment a hand touched her shoulder.
Pain shot through her instantly.
Bloom jerked with a strangled gasp, eyes flying open as her body reacted before her mind could catch up. Fire sparked weakly across her fingertips on instinct before immediately sputtering out.
“Sorry, kid.”
Saul Silva’s voice was rougher up close.
Bloom blinked through the haze of pain and exhaustion, only then realizing he had crouched beside her on the mat. The dampness from the ground darkened the knees of his uniform, though he either hadn’t noticed or simply didn’t care.
Silva glanced briefly toward the now empty edge of the field where Rosalind and Andreas had disappeared before looking back at her.
“This shit isn’t teaching,” he grunted and a weak, humorless laugh escaped Bloom before she could stop it.
“I think we both know they don’t care,” she weakly remarked before slowly uncurling.
Something tightened visibly in Silva’s expression at that.
Not disagreement.
Because they both knew she was right.
Slowly, Bloom pushed herself upright, unable to fully hide the way her arms trembled beneath the effort. Silva immediately steadied her before she could lose balance again, one hand firm against her elbow.
“Don’t listen to her,” he muttered. “You’re doing better than you think.”
Bloom looked away.
“You’ve improved,” Silva continued quietly. “Immensely.”
The words hit strangely after everything else. Saul Silva was the last person who should be kind to her. Not after what her actions had cost him yet here he was.
“Thank you… Mr. Silva.” The words scraped out of her, gratitude rising like a bruise beneath her ribs — painful, unexpected, undeserved. She swallowed hard, terrified that if she breathed wrong, the tears would spill.
She knew he should not have stayed behind. Rosalind would not approve of this — of comfort, encouragement, softness. Every act of kindness at Alfea now felt almost rebellious.
Silva was quiet for a moment.
Then— “She’d be proud of you.”
The words came out hoarse and Bloom felt her chest constrict painfully.
She.
Neither of them needed to say the name aloud.
Farah Dowling lingered in the spaces between them anyway, present in every unfinished sentence and every silence that followed.
Officially, Farah Dowling had taken a sabbatical from Alfea.
Bloom knew better.
There was no world in which Farah would have willingly left the school in Rosalind’s hands. No world in which she would have abandoned them.
“She was proud of you already,” Silva said softly, voice unsteady now in a way Bloom had never heard before. “More than you know.”
A large hand lifted carefully to her cheek, gentle despite the roughness of his palms, and Bloom finally looked up at him fully.
The grief in his eyes nearly undid her.
“Never forget that.”
Bloom’s throat tightened violently. She couldn’t forget.
Bloom couldn’t forget that, she couldn’t forget the look in Ms. Dowling’s eyes the last time they’d spoken, couldn’t forget the way she’d opened her mouth to speak before shaking her head and telling her that they would speak upon her return from the first world. Safe to say, it was a conversation they would never have.
When Bloom had returned to Alfea, it was to see Rosalind as Headmistress.
Silva cleared his throat roughly and stepped back before the silence between them could become unbearable.
“Get some rest,” he said. “Take a hot shower. Use that cream Terra made for you.”
The corner of his mouth twitched faintly, the closest thing to warmth she’d seen all evening.
“A good night’s sleep helps recovery.”
Bloom nodded once.
Silva lingered for half a second longer, like he wanted to say something else.
Then discipline won over emotion.
He turned and walked away into the mist.
Bloom remained standing alone on the training mat long after he disappeared from sight, watching the darkness swallow him whole.
Only when a soft drizzle began to fall from the night sky did she finally force herself to walk back toward the Winx suite.
Soft golden light spilled across the winx suite when Bloom finally returned.
It was warm inside. After the freezing dampness of the training grounds, the suite felt almost unreal. Soft lamps glowing against darkened walls, blankets draped across the couch, the faint scent of tea and herbs lingering in the air.
Quiet, safe, or at the very least, the closest thing to safe any of them had felt in weeks.
The room fell silent the moment she stepped inside. Stella, Aisha, Terra and Musa were all waiting for her, this was routine, an aspect she’d begun to hate because the concern and worry that filtered over their faces made her guilt grow stronger. What didn’t help was the fact that she knew they were scared. Not scared of her, but for her.
Within seconds Aisha was moving, getting to her feet and rounding the couch quickly until she stood directly in front of Bloom. Gentle hands cupped her face with practiced care, carefully tilting her head towards hte light.
Bloom flinched despite herself when fingers brushed the bruise already forming along her cheekbone.
Aisha’s expression tightened.
“It looks worse than it was,” Bloom lied quietly.
No one answered.
Because they all knew better now.
Terra stepped closer a second later, concern written openly across her face.
“Why don’t you take a shower?” she suggested softly. “I’ll get the creams ready.”
Bloom managed a small nod.
“I’ll grab your clothes,” Aisha murmured before disappearing toward the bedroom she and Bloom shared.
The ease with which they moved around her should have been comforting.
Instead it made guilt twist painfully in her stomach.
This had become ritual now.
Bloom went to the training grounds to be broken apart, and the others helped piece her back together afterward.
Terra made salves and herbal creams strong enough to ease bruising and swelling.
Stella always put the kettle on before Bloom returned, as though hot tea could somehow ward off the things happening beyond the suite walls.
Musa dimmed the lights and filled the rooms with soft music whenever the nightmares became too loud.
And somewhere along the way, they had all stopped sleeping separately.
Mattresses had been dragged into the common room weeks ago. Blankets and pillows now covered nearly every surface, creating a tangled nest of warmth in the center of the suite.
None of them said why.
They simply slept curled beside one another now.
Not alone.
Never alone.
Bloom shut the bathroom door quietly behind her.
The moment the lock clicked into place, exhaustion crashed into her all at once.
She turned on the shower before gripping the edge of the sink hard enough for her knuckles to whiten, head hanging low as she struggled to steady her breathing.
It didn’t work, the tears came anyway. Silent at first, then sharp enough to burn. Because this was her fault, she’d done this.
Fear poisoned the school now. Students walked the halls carefully, voices quieter than before, eyes lowered whenever Rosalind passed.
And Farah Dowling was gone.
Bloom had caused this and even darker still, nobody knew the full extent of her betrayal.
Flashback:
“You called, Headmistress,” Bloom greeted, voice void of emotions. Something she’d learned to do with the woman sitting behind the desk.
She stood rigidly inside the Headmistress’ office, her gaze fixed deliberately on the wall just above the woman’s head rather than meeting her eyes.
After the first day, she stopped looking around the office entirely.
It hurt too much to remember what it had once felt like. Warm. Safe.
Rosalind had stripped that away from the room just as thoroughly as she had stripped it from the school itself.
“I’ve decided to begin your weapons training in two weeks,” Rosalind said smoothly. “My expectations are currently quite low, but unlike Farah, I do not intend to coddle you into mediocrity.”
Bloom stopped herself from closing her eyes in defeat. Additional training meant additional bruises, and this time with weapons included meant she’d get more than just bruises. She’d have to find a way to get bandages considering she had a bad feeling cuts and slashes were going to be a normal thing for her in two weeks.
“You will be learning to use these.”
Only then did Bloom look down.
Two weapons rested across Rosalind’s desk atop dark violet cloth.
Twin blades.
Not overly long, but elegant in a way that immediately drew the eye. Their hilts were wrapped in faded lavender bindings, pale ribbons trailing loosely from either handle. Both blades were in black sheaths, their sharpened blade hidden from view.
The blades were well care for despite obvious age which meant they were not new.
Loom frowned slightly, these were not school weapons, and students were never given personal weapons by staff. It also didn’t fit in with Rosalind’s persona to give Bloom anything.
“These belonged to your mother,”
The words hollowed the air from Bloom’s lungs.
Her head snapped upward so quickly her neck hurt.
Rosalind merely watched her, assessing her.
“She was highly proficient with them,” she continued, before turning to her documents. “Though unfortunately still did little to compensate for her many disappointments.
“My mother…” she whispered, the words barely sounding like her own voice to her ears.
Rosalind’s expression sharpened with irritation, as though the mere thought of her mother inconvenienced her.
“Yes, consider it a… gift.” She remarked although Bloom knew they were far from a gift. “I expect you to inherit at least some measure of her talent. You will learn to wield them properly.”
Bloom stared at the blades again.
Her mother.
A woman she had never known. A woman she’d tried to find anything on and thus because of it, had released Rosalind to destroy the world she’d come to love.
This was the first hint that Rosalind had given her. She’d always said she knew who Bloom’s parents were but she’d never revealed anything. Instead she seemed to be using it against Bloom, only allowing little tidbits to slip through. This… this was the biggest thing so far, and Rosalind made it sound like the woman was dead. A theory that was all too plausible considering nobody would allow their weapons to simply be taken from them if they had a choice.
“Take them,” Rosalind ordered. “Your additional training schedule will be delivered in due time.” Rosalind dismissed, waving her hand in a showing manner as she continued her paperwork.
Bloom gathered the blades carefully into trembling hands before leaving the office in stunned silence.
They felt heavier than they should have.
Not because of the metal. Because of what they meant.
These belonged to your mother.
The words echoed endlessly through her mind as she walked blindly back toward the Winx suite.
Could it really be true? Or was Rosalind simply manipulating her again?
Playing with her food.
The thought made something cold settle on Bloom’s shoulders. She didn’t put it past her. Rosalind manipulated and lied, that’s what Ms. Dowling had told her and what she’d come to realize all too quickly. Don’t trust Rosalind Hale.
Yet… there was a chance the woman wasn’t lying, it was possible that these swords actually belonged to a mother Bloom had never gotten the chance to meet.
Arriving at the suite, she found it empty, or at least she thought it was empty because before she could slip into her room to put the swords away, the door to Terra and Musa’s room opened and Terra stepped out.
She was smiling faintly until her eyes landed on the swords in Bloom’s arms. The smile vanished instantly. Shock crossed her face first, then confusion, then something painfully close to anger.
“Where did you get those?” She asked, her voice shaking.
“Rosalind handed them to me, apparently I’m to learn how to use them in the next few weeks.” She answered, voice hollow as she watched Terra. Her friend’s eyes were glued to the swords, unmoving and Bloom knew something was wrong.
“Terra, What do I not know?”
Terra seemed to hesitate, her eyes shifting from the swords to Bloom before shifting away.
“Those belonged to Aunt Farah,”
End of Flashback:
A sob broke through her lips before she could stop it.
She pressed the heel of her hand hard against her mouth, shoulders shaking as the truth she had been avoiding for days crashed violently through her chest all over again.
She had never told anybody what Rosalind had told her about those swords. Not Aisha, not Stella or Musa and especially not Terra. She’d locked the swords away, refusing to touch them until she absolutely had no choice.
Steam slowly filled the bathroom as Bloom stood leaning heavily against the sink. It took her a bit longer to gather herself rough to strip her clothes before she shakily stepped beneath the burning spray of hot water.
She was proud of you.
Silva’s words echoed painfully through her head.
Yeah and I got her killed, Bloom thought. If Rosalind isn't lying to me about those fucking swords, then I killed…. I killed her. I killed my own mother.
She let Rosalind out, gave the woman the perfect chance she could ever have to take her revenge.
The thought poisoned everything.
Worse still, it explained Rosalind’s cruelty toward Silva. Why she forced him to stand there watching as Bloom endured Andreas’s training without intervening.
It was punishment, a silent torture the man didn’t fully know the impact off.
Terra had let slip the relationship between Ms. Dowling and Mr. Silva. How they’d been married but chose to keep their names separate for educational purposes and that meant that if Farah Dowling was Bloom’s mother, Saul Silva was… was her father.
Worse yet, Silva didn’t know. Didn’t know the girl being brutalized on the training mat was possibly his daughter. Didn’t know the child he believed had died of a heart defect might actually be alive.
Terra had told them that information the first night they’d all slept in the sitting room. They’d all been sharing a bit of themselves that night and Terra had shared that little tidbit of information that had settled in the room with sadness.
A heart defect. The same defect Bloom supposedly should have died from as an infant. Except it wasn’t Bloom that was diagnosed with the heart defect, it had been the Peters baby who was diagnosed with the heart defect.
All this brought terrible facts to light. If Bloom really was their daughter, the daughter they believed had died at birth, that meant she’d been switched at birth. Rosalind was the one to put Bloom in the First world to begin with. That meant… that meant Rosalind had been the one to take her from her parents. Rosalind had betrayed Ms. Dowling and Mr. Silva before Asterdell, and the question rose, was that her intention? Had her intention been to destabilize Ms. Dowling, make her colder, more broken, so that she would focus on her anger instead of happiness when using her powers? Had Rosalind planned that Bloom would simply disappear and never realize who she could have been?
Worst even, Rosalind was using the information she had to punish those around her secretly, for her own twisted satisfaction.
Bloom stayed beneath the spray of hot water long after it stopped feeling comforting.
Steam thickened the air around her, curling against the mirror and softening the harsh edges of the bathroom until everything blurred together. Water rolled over bruised skin in uneven paths, each fresh ache announcing itself as heat struck battered flesh.
Her shoulder throbbed the worst.
Dark bruising bloomed beneath her skin there, ugly shades of purple and blue already beginning to spread downward across her arm. Finger shaped marks lingered along her wrists from where Andreas had grabbed her earlier, angry against pale skin.
Bloom stared at them numbly.
This was becoming normal too.
That thought hurt more than the bruises did.
Slowly, mechanically, she went through the motions. Shampoo. Conditioner. Soap. Wash away the dirt from the training mat. Wash away the sweat. The blood. The feeling of Andreas’s hands gripping too hard.
It didn’t work.
By the time the water began to cool, exhaustion weighed so heavily against her body that standing upright felt difficult.
Bloom shut the shower off and silence rushed back in
She wrapped herself carefully in a towel after drying off, wincing as the fabric brushed against bruised ribs, before finally forcing herself to leave the bathroom.
The suite was dimmer when she stepped back into the common room.
Someone — probably Musa — had lowered the lights until only the warm glow of the standing lamps remained, casting the room in soft amber shadows. Rain tapped quietly against the windows now, steady and calming against the silence hanging over the suite.
The girls were still awake.
Waiting for her.
Of course they were.
Terra sat cross legged on one of the mattresses spread across the floor, several jars and small containers arranged carefully beside her. Stella lingered near the kitchenette with steaming mugs cradled between her hands while Musa and Aisha shifted to make room the moment Bloom emerged.
No one commented on her red eyes. They gave her the space she needed, the quiet she needed.
Bloom lowered herself slowly onto the mattress beside Terra, unable to fully hide the small hiss of pain that escaped her as sore muscles protested immediately.
Terra’s expression tightened.
“Sorry,” Bloom murmured automatically.
Terra looked almost offended by the apology.
“Bloom.”
Just her name, softly spoken but still reproachful as though telling her she had nothing to apologize for but that wasn’t true.
Gentle hands worked carefully after that.
Terra applied cooling salves across the worst bruises with practiced precision, fingers featherlight whenever Bloom flinched. Aisha wrapped Bloom’s shoulder securely once the cream had soaked into the swollen joint while Stella quietly pressed a mug of tea into Bloom’s hands the second Terra finished.
Musa remained close the entire time, the suite filled with the soft low hum of music Bloom barely recognized anymore. Something instrumental. Quiet enough to soothe without demanding attention.
None of them pushed her to speak.
None of them asked how bad it had been tonight.
They already knew.
By the time Bloom finally changed into her pajamas, exhaustion had settled so deeply into her body that it felt impossible to separate from it. Every movement dragged. Every breath ached.
One by one, the lights dimmed further until the suite fell into near darkness.
The rain outside softened into a steady rhythm against the windows.
Bodies shifted quietly beneath blankets and tangled sheets as everyone settled into their places across the mattresses scattered through the common room.
Bloom curled onto her side slowly, drawing the blanket tightly around herself as cold exhaustion crept beneath her skin.
Sleep felt close now.
Beside her, Terra adjusted slightly beneath the blankets. Without fully thinking about it, Bloom reached out through the darkness.
Her fingers found Terra’s hand almost immediately and held on.
Terra’s grip tightened gently around hers in silent understanding.
Bloom squeezed her eyes shut hard enough to burn as exhaustion finally began pulling her under.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered into the darkness. Sorry mamma.