The Regressions

Panic is a cold, sharp thing. It drove Clara back to the meditation hall after midnight. The ashram was asleep, bathed in the eerie, watery light of a full moon struggling through the fog. She found the Head Guide kneeling before the central altar, arranging dried flowers.

“Mother Aris,” Clara whispered, her voice cracking. “I need you to put me under again. Deeper this time. Break the safeguards.”

The older woman slowly turned, her expression unreadable in the gloom. “The safeguards protect your mind, Clara. Going deeper into the past without anchoring can fracture the soul.”

“My soul is already fracturing!” Clara hissed, stepping closer, her eyes wide and desperate. “He’s here. My husband. But he’s not just a man. I saw him in the trance. He killed me in the 1700s. I need to know why. I need to know what he is.”

Mother Aris stared at her for a long, heavy moment. Finally, she nodded slowly. “Lie down. Center yourself. We will bypass the protective veils.”

Clara lay flat on the hard wooden floor. Mother Aris placed a thumb against the center of Clara’s forehead, pressing hard. She didn't chant this time. She spoke a single, harsh syllable in a language Clara had never heard, a sound that seemed to crack the air itself.

Clara plunged instantly into the abyss.

There was no gentle descent this time. It was a violent, kaleidoscopic freefall through centuries. Memories crashed into her consciousness, overwhelming her sensory inputs, bleeding together in a horrific montage of tragedy.

* She was a young Victorian bride, coughing blood onto a white lace handkerchief. Julian was there, dressed in a sharp frock coat, sitting by her bedside. He wasn't crying. He was inhaling the mist that rose from her dying breath, his eyes glowing with unnatural vitality as her life faded.*

* The scene ripped away. She was a peasant woman in a medieval village, tied to a wooden stake. The flames were licking at her bare feet. The inquisitor standing before the mob pulled back his cowl. Julian. He locked eyes with her as she screamed, his expression one of rapturous consumption, absorbing the raw spiritual energy of her agony.*

* Another violent shift. She was an ancient priestess in a temple of carved stone, wearing robes of spun gold. She was lying on an obsidian altar. A high priest loomed over her, a curved dagger in his hand. Julian. “The cycle begins,” he whispered, plunging the blade into her chest, drinking the light that poured from the wound.*

Clara screamed.

She was pulled back to the present so violently her physical body convulsed on the floor. She rolled onto her side, retching dryly, sobbing uncontrollably.

The truth was a crushing, inescapable weight. Julian wasn't just a man. He was an ancient, parasitic entity. He didn't love her. He farmed her. Across countless centuries, he had found her reincarnated soul, bound her to him, and consumed her life force to maintain his own immortality. Every time she died, she fed him. And every time she was reborn, the tether pulled her right back into his grasp.

“I have to run,” Clara gasped, struggling to her feet, her vision swimming. “I have to get out of here.”

“You cannot outrun karma, child,” Mother Aris said softly from the shadows.

Clara didn't stop to listen. She bolted from the hall, plunging into the freezing, foggy night.