ROOMS I NEVER ESCAPED

Author’s Note / Content Warnings

Rooms I Never Escaped is a dark psychological thriller that contains graphic and sensitive material.

This book explores heavy, intense topics that may not be suitable for all readers.

Specific triggers include:

Emotional abuse

Physical violence

Psychological manipulation

Depictions of mental illness

Self-harm

Toxic and codependent relationships

Dominance and control dynamics

Emotional breakdowns and suicidal ideation

Violent intimacy

Graphic fights and injuries

Themes of abandonment, betrayal, and trauma

Dark, obsessive love

Profanity and explicit emotional content

Reader discretion is strongly advised.

This story aims to explore the raw, painful, and complicated sides of human nature without romanticizing abuse or mental illness. It is a work of fiction intended for mature audiences.

This is my first try on writing a ''book" inspired by scenarios lmao, hope u guys enjoy it 🫶🏻

The day started the way all disasters did— with Ray waking up pissed at the sun for existing.

"Fuck you, Tuesday," she muttered at the ceiling, dragging herself out of bed like some half-dead raccoon. Her hair looked like it had fist-fought the pillow and lost. Her hoodie was inside-out. Her mood? Nuclear.

She kicked the blanket off like it owed her money, stumbled toward the bathroom, and flipped herself off in the mirror just for existing.

"You're doing amazing, sweetie," she muttered to her reflection, sarcastically dead inside.

Downstairs, Zack was making enough noise to resurrect the dead.

Pots clanging. Cabinet doors slamming. Peanut butter jar dropping on the floor with a thud.

Ray stormed into the kitchen looking like a cryptid that had been evicted from hell, hoodie half-on, socks mismatched, aura set to homicidal.

"Jesus CHRIST, Zack, what are you cooking, a fucking apocalypse?"

Zack didn’t even flinch.

Standing there in just sweatpants, hair a mess, spoon halfway to his mouth, he looked up at her with the smuggest damn grin in human history.

"Good morning, my emotionally unstable pookie " he said brightly.

Ray gave him a look that could’ve sent lesser men into cardiac arrest.

Instead, Zack just kept eating peanut butter straight from the jar like some six-foot-tall goblin king.

"You seem tense," he added, fake concerned. "Wanna beat the shit out of me about it?"

"Nahh not today," Ray snapped, snatching a can of monster energy drink from the fridge and cracking it open like it was a grenade.

"That’s a yess," Zack translated immediately.

Before she could escape, he tossed her gym bag at her face. She caught it purely on trauma reflex.

"No, Zack. I'm dead serious," she grumbled. "I wanna rot in peace today. I want to marinate in my bad mood and listen to sad music until my soul shrivels up and dies like it’s supposed to."

"Yeah, yeah, yeahh" he said, already walking toward the door. "You can shrivel after you survive my training, dumbass."

Ray groaned loud enough to wake the dead.

"Fucking hell, you know what I hope a pigeon shits on your face today."

"Love you too, pookie," he called over his shoulder.

The thing was—

Zack had been dragging her sorry ass into gyms for two years now.

Teaching her how to throw a punch without breaking her own fingers.

How to move, how to hit, how to survive.

And somehow, against every law of physics and God, she had gotten good.

Like scary good.

Like "someone call 911 before she folds this dude like laundry"-good.

And secretly?

Ray loved it.

She loved knowing that no matter what fresh hell life threw at her, she could punch it in the throat and walk away smiling.

Even if this morning, she wanted to throttle Zack with his own shoelaces.

IN THE GYM

The gym reeked of metal, sweat, and ghosts.

Rubber mats burned under Ray's bare feet. Her pulse was a war drum. Her breath, mechanical. Zack circled her like a storm with a calm eye-controlled, lethal, watching.

They didn't speak.

Words were too soft for what they were about to do.

She lunged first-a savage right hook meant to tear something loose in his ribs. He spun out, caught her wrist, flipped her mid-air, and she landed with a thud that rattled the concrete bones of the room. She didn't pause. She rose like something feral and cracked her shin against the side of his head.

He staggered. Smirked. Blood dripped from his lip.

"Good," he muttered. "Again."

They moved like shadows dipped in fire. Every strike echoed like gunshots, every dodge was poetry built on pain. Zack's elbow missed her temple by an inch. Her heel smashed into his thigh. They didn't hold back-not here. Not now.

People stopped training. All eyes on them. No one blinked.

It wasn't a fight anymore.

It was a goddamn exorcism.

Zack roared and spun, his foot slicing through the air like a blade. Ray ducked-barely. The edge of his kick nicked her shoulder. Bone screamed. Still, she struck back-knee, palm, elbow-until they were both bleeding and breathless, creatures shaped by fury.

Then-

The door opened.

And everything shattered.

Ray didn't turn her head.

She didn't need to.

She felt him.

A gravitational pull.

A weight her body remembered before her mind could speak.

Nico.

The name was a wound.

Seven years poured into that doorway in the shape of the man who used to be her world.

His face was sharper now, jaw tighter. But the eyes? God, the eyes. They carried that hollow ache-the look of someone still bleeding from a goodbye he never wanted to say.

And beside him...

Her.

The new girl. The cleaner version. The one who didn't see him unravel.

The one who didn't crawl through the hell Ray had stitched shut.

And just like that-Ray stopped breathing.

She didn't see the kick coming.

Zack's boot collided with her stomach-hard. A wet crunch echoed through the gym. Her body bent in half before flying backward, landing on her side. Her ribs screamed. Her vision blinked red. But it wasn't over.

Zack didn't stop.

"UP." His voice thundered. "MOVE."

She tried. Hands shook. Blood trailed from her mouth. Her legs buckled-but he didn't care.

He came at her again.

Another kick. This time to her shoulder. Her collarbone cracked.

She gasped.

But she didn't scream.

The room was spinning, but she stayed down.

"No freezing, Ray. That's not you anymore," Zack said, his voice low, razor-edged, almost cruel.

He grabbed her by the front of her shirt and yanked her up. She stumbled forward, caught between memory and massacre. She saw Nico's eyes-wide, horrified, helpless.

He stepped forward.

Zack slammed his forearm into Ray's jaw. Blood exploded from her mouth. Her lip split like paper. The room fell into silence.

"Don't you dare look at him," Zack snarled through clenched teeth. "He doesn't exist in here. Ray listen to me !"

Ray hit the ground again, face-first. Her mouth filled with the taste of iron. Her body curled. Her mind spiraled.

And then-

She laughed

Soft. Hollow.

A laugh born in madness.

Because in that moment, she finally understood:

She hadn't escaped anything.

She was still in every room she ever tried to burn.

Every scream she swallowed.

Every lie she forgave.

Every night she waited for Nico to come back-and he didn't.

He was watching now. But it was too late.

Zack raised his fist again, ready to drive it through her, but she moved.

Not to dodge.

To rise.

Slowly. Blood-soaked. Limping.

But smiling-cracked and crooked.

Because she wasn't fighting Zack anymore.

She was fighting every version of herself that let someone else destroy her.

----

Ray’s shoulders hit the wall with a grunt, but this time she didn’t crumple.

She stayed standing.

Shaking. Bloody. Glaring.

Zack stood in front of her, chest heaving, eyes dark as storms.

He didn’t touch her yet.

He just looked at her — really looked — like she was a battlefield he refused to let fall.

"You froze," he said, voice low, brutal. "You fucking froze for him."

Ray clenched her jaw. Blood dripped from her split lip, pooling on the rubber floor.

"I didn’t," she rasped.

"Bullshit," Zack snapped. He took a step closer, crowding her against the wall. "I saw it. The second that piece of shit walked in, you fucking hesitated."

Her hands curled into fists. Her ribs ached.

But she didn’t look away.

"I remembered," she ground out. "That's all."

Zack sneered, but it wasn’t real hate—it was fury twisted by love.

"You remembered?" he spat.

He grabbed the collar of her shirt and yanked her forward until their foreheads slammed together, rough enough to hurt.

"You remembered the girl who fucking broke for him? Who bled for him? Who died waiting for a coward to come back?"

Ray's breath hitched.

But she didn’t fall apart.

"I’m not her," she whispered.

Zack’s hand fisted the back of her hair, tugging her head back to force her to look at him.

"Say it louder, motherfucker," he growled into her face. His eyes gleamed, feral and proud and furious all at once. "Say it so loud you drown out the bitch that used to beg."

"I’m not her!" Ray snarled, voice cracking into something savage.

Zack’s lips curled into a vicious, broken grin.

"Goddamn right you’re not," he hissed.

He shoved her back against the wall again—not to hurt her—but to anchor her there, like he could hammer the truth into her bones.

"You think you’re fucking weak ‘cause you remember?" he barked.

"You think the scars mean you’re losing? No, princess. The scars mean you fucking won. They mean you clawed your way out and left that gutless piece of shit choking on your dust."

Ray panted, vision blurring, but she was smiling now—crooked, bloody, beautiful.

"You hear me?" Zack snarled. He grabbed her chin roughly, forcing her to meet his gaze. "You're mine now. Mine. Not his memory. Not his regret. Mine. Every goddamn piece of you that survived that hell belongs to me."

Ray laughed—hoarse, wrecked.

"You’re a psycho," she whispered.

"And you fucking love it," he shot back, almost smiling.

For a heartbeat, they just breathed each other in—blood, sweat, rage, love all tangled like barbed wire.

"You wanna break?" Zack growled. "Go ahead. I'll beat the pieces back into you. I’ll stitch you back together with fucking iron. I’ll chain you to the future you built instead of letting you crawl back to the grave you came from."

Ray leaned into him then—forehead against his, bruised and burning, but alive.

"I’m not going anywhere," she said, voice low and steady.

Zack’s arms wrapped around her like shackles—and like salvation.

"Fuckin' right you're not," he muttered into her hair, tightening his grip until she could barely breathe.

"You made it out, Ray, you’re staying out and if you ever forget, I’ll fucking remind you."