THE DARKEST MINDS: OASIS

(Present day/Jesse's pov)

One thing about losing your mind, you can't take anything seriously- not whean the world around you appears so bright and vibrant, and the wispers seem to overwhelm the orders of the soldiers around you sometimes you can hear beautiful voices singing even more beautiful songs into your ear today was such a day, tried as I might I couldn't drown out the music-the song rang in my ears as I walked down the narrow path to my bunk and before I noticed I was danceing as soon as I was detached from the chains, but the soldiers didn't care.

Giggling and laughing I pulled a random yellow into it twirling and spinning her untill she could barely stand much less walk and whean that happened I twirled her around before switching to another, this time it was a red and I repeated this as I traveled down the narrow path.

"HAHA..hahahaha." The song they sang was so beautiful that it strained my reality morphing it so that everyone was dancing despite even makeing it so I saw shadows moveing about the cabin, dancing just as gracefully as I was.

The music was too sweet, too consuming, curling around my brain like a whispering serpent. It was everywhere, in the air, in my bones, in the way the shadows twisted and twirled like partners in an unseen waltz.

I kept spinning, my feet barely touching the ground, the laughter bubbling up from my throat uncontrollably. My latest partner—a Red—stumbled out of my grip, dazed and breathless, but I had already moved on, reaching for the next unfortunate soul to join me in my dance.

The cabin swayed with the rhythm. Or maybe that was just me. The walls pulsed, the floor hummed beneath my steps, and the very air shimmered like the surface of a sunlit lake.

"Jesse!" Someone's voice cut through the melody, sharp and grating, an unwelcome discord in my perfect symphony. A hand grabbed my arm, and I twirled to face them, only to come nose-to-nose with Mira.

Name's something we hardly used slightly brought me back, if not briefly, the shadows frozen as I stood there.

Her golden eyes were wide, wild, flickering like sparks, and her skin crackled with static.

"Jesse," she said again, voice tight with something I couldn't place. "Your loseing it-your scareing them look around." She said but at that moment the orchestra kicked in drowning out all thoughts that might have had-any reason I might have had, so with her in my reach I pulled her into my madness-into a graceful dance.

Mira yelped as I spun her, but I didn't stop. She resisted at first, her fingers tightening around my arms like she could shake me out of it, but I just laughed and twirled her again. The music swelled, the unseen orchestra reaching a crescendo, and I dipped her low, her golden eyes wide with something between frustration and fear.

"Jesse, snap out of it," she hissed, her voice barely cutting through the melody drowning my mind.

But how could I? The world was alive, pulsing with sound and movement, shadows waltzing just beyond the edge of sight, their limbs long and elegant. The cabin had become a ballroom, the grimy floorboards polished marble, the flickering overhead lights a chandelier casting golden glimmers across a grand hall. And Mira—oh, Mira—was my perfect partner.

I pulled her close, grinning ear to ear. "Can't you hear it?" I whispered. "The music, the rhythm? It's everywhere, Mira. It's beautiful."

Her hands crackled against my skin, little zaps of electricity snapping along my arms, but I barely felt them. Maybe I was immune to the shock. Maybe the fire burning in my veins swallowed it whole. Or maybe, just maybe, I was too far gone.

Mira struggled, but I refused to let go, spinning her into another step, another twirl, another impossible, graceful movement as the walls warped and swayed. My head tilted back, laughter spilling from my lips like a hymn to the madness.

Mira growled under her breath, her patience snapping like the static between us. "Jesse," she said, voice taut, her fingers digging into my arms. "Enough."

But how could it be enough when the melody was still playing? When the world still danced?

I grinned, pressing my forehead to hers, the heat from my skin meeting the electric buzz of hers, a contrast of fire and lightning. "Not yet, Mira," I murmured, swaying with her, our bodies locked in an intricate, feverish rhythm. "The song isn't over."

Her breath hitched, frustration laced with something else—something raw, something worried. But before she could say another word, I dipped her again, laughing as her hair brushed the floor, as the room spun, as the shadows danced in time with us, swirling, whispering, singing.

But then Mira did something unexpected.

She clenched her jaw, then with a burst of movement, slammed her forehead into mine.

CRACK.

White-hot pain splintered through my skull. The music stuttered, skipping a beat. The shadows flickered.

I blinked.

The grand ballroom wavered, the elegant chandelier twisting into rusted light fixtures, the polished marble morphing back into dirty, splintered wood. The whispers distorted into shouts, into murmurs of fear, into the uneven breathing of those around me.

I blinked again.

Mira was still in my arms, her chest heaving, her golden eyes locked onto mine. "Come back," she whispered. "Now."

My grip on her loosened, the fog in my mind shifting, clearing—just enough for the weight of the moment to slam into me.

The cabin was silent now, save for the nervous shuffling of the others. The soldiers watched from the sidelines, their expressions unreadable. The Reds and Yellows I had dragged into my delirium were huddled together, some catching their breath, some watching me with wary eyes.

I turned my head slightly, and the shadows—those elegant, graceful dancers—were gone.

A sick sort of emptiness curled in my stomach, a hollow pit where the music had been. My hands trembled. Mira must've felt it, because her fingers tightened on mine, grounding me in a way only she could.

Roping my hands from hers I gently pushed her away a spark of anger flew through me as the graceful shadows disappeared however the from the way she was looking at me I knew I was looking at her a way that hert her.

Mira didn't flinch under my stare, but I saw it—the flicker of something deep in her eyes, a crack in her usual defiance. It wasn't fear. It was something worse. Something heavier.

Disappointment.

My jaw clenched, heat curling under my skin, coiling around my ribs like a vice. The music was gone, the laughter snuffed out like a candle in a storm. The air felt stale now, thick and suffocating, nothing like the vibrant, pulsing rhythm that had held me just moments ago.

The silence pressed down on me, suffocating, unbearable. I could still feel the ghost of the melody lingering at the edges of my mind, a phantom whisper, a cruel reminder of how easily I had slipped—how easily I always slipped.

I swallowed hard, shaking off the last remnants of my daze, and turned my gaze to the others. Reds and Yellows, huddled together, watching me with wide, uncertain eyes. Some were still trembling from my grasp, their shoulders drawn tight, their eyes darting between me and the soldiers.

They were afraid.

Not of the guards. Not of the soldiers who held our chains.

Of me.

Something inside me twisted at that, but I forced it down, locking it away beneath the heat crawling up my spine. Anger was easier. Anger was safer. I could feel it bubbling beneath the surface, clawing at my ribs, begging to be let out. My hands curled into fists.

"You ruined it," I muttered, my voice low, barely above a whisper.

Mira tensed. "What?"

I met her gaze, my vision still blurred at the edges, the world still too dull, too wrong without the music. "You ruined it," I said again, louder this time, sharp enough that the air between us crackled.

Her lips parted slightly, her golden eyes searching my face, trying to find something—anything—behind my words. But there was nothing to find. Just heat and frustration and the hollow echo of something that had been beautiful.

"I saved you," she shot back, voice tight, sparks crackling along her skin. "You were losing control, Jesse. Again. Do you even realize what could've happened?"

I scoffed, rolling my shoulders back, the weight of her words pressing against my skin. Control. What a joke. She acted like that mattered. Like any of this mattered.

"I had control," I snapped, stepping closer, lowering my voice so only she could hear. "I always have control."

Her eyes narrowed. "That's a lie, and you know it."

I gritted my teeth.

She wasn't wrong.

But she wasn't right either.

The music had made sense. The music had made everything better. It had taken away the cold walls and the suffocating silence. It had freed me, even if only for a moment. And now, without it, everything felt too much—too sharp, too real, too wrong.

Mira's fingers twitched at her sides like she wanted to reach for me again, but she didn't. She just stood there, watching me, her gaze heavy with something I didn't want to name.

I turned away first, breaking the tension, my pulse still thrumming with the ghost of a melody that wasn't there.

A sharp voice cut through the cabin, tearing through whatever was left of the moment.

"Enough!"

The soldiers. Right.

I had almost forgotten they were there.

The spell was broken. The moment shattered. Reality slammed back into place, harsh and unforgiving.

"Back to your bunks," one of the guards barked, stepping forward, his rifle held loosely at his side but not too loosely. He was watching me. All of them were watching me now.

They had let me dance. Let me spiral.

They had wanted to see how far I'd go.

My stomach twisted, the heat in my veins shifting from fire to something colder, something uglier.

Mira was still looking at me when I turned, her golden gaze unreadable.

I held it for a second longer than I should have.

Then, without another word, I stepped past her and walked to my bunk, the absence of music ringing louder than the song ever had.

Sitting down on my bunk I couldn't help but draw my knees to my chest, the beautiful song was dead but four shadows stayed giggling and laughing as they ran around the cabin and crawled underneath the bunks only stoping to pear from underneath my bunk, laughing and giggling as they ran around but my smile was gone instead I sat there frozen as I watched.

I knew who they were, I knew and for the first time since I could remember I cried, not loud nor exaggeratedly but quietly.

My baby siblings.

The tears slid down my cheeks silently, each drop a quiet testament to the fragments of my past, the pieces of myself I couldn't seem to escape. The shadows continued to dance around the cabin, giggling in their eerie, childlike way, their laughter rising and falling like a melody just out of reach. They didn't belong here, not anymore. They hadn't for so long, but here they were again—my baby siblings.

"Just a few more days." I whispered to myself, trying to shot off the madness but I couldn't not without the music, hearing the cabin door shut I immediately got up and walked to the bathroom, the giggles following me all the way there.

The bathroom was cold, the florescent lights above flickering as I stepped inside. The mirror before me was cracked, a jagged line splitting the glass like a scar, but it was still enough for me to see myself—too much, maybe. My face was pale, gaunt. My hair was wild, untamed, as if I hadn't seen a brush in weeks. My eyes… they were wild too. Frenetic. Like I was looking at a stranger, someone who had been pushed too far, too fast, and couldn't quite remember where the edge was anymore.

I tried to steady my breathing, but it was no use. The giggling followed me into the bathroom. Soft at first, like a whisper just beyond the walls, but then louder, closer, and more insistent. It sounded like it was coming from the cracks in the tiles, from beneath the sink, from behind me in the mirror.

"Stop," I hissed, my voice trembling, but the shadows weren't listening. They were relentless, the echoes of my past, my family, my broken pieces.

Stepping into the shower I turned it on, leting the cool water wash over me however they didn't stop instead they began splashing the water around like they had when we played in the rain, when they where more then shadows of my fractured mind.

The cool water splashed against my face, but the giggles didn't stop. They echoed in my ears, too real, too vivid. My eyes squeezed shut as the water streamed down my face, trying to drown them out. But they were relentless, darting in and out of my vision like fleeting glimpses of something that shouldn't exist—shadows, but not just shadows. They were my baby siblings. I hadn't seen them in so long, not like this, not since… since the day I lost everything.

I reached up, scrubbing my face with my hands, but the laughter grew louder, more frantic. I could feel them all around me, splashing and giggling like they always had when we used to play outside, before the camp, before everything fell apart. The water was cold, but my skin burned with an internal heat I couldn't control. The madness. The memories.

"Stop," I whispered, pressing my palms against my temples, trying to push the images away, trying to force the memories back into the dark corners of my mind. But the shadows wouldn't go away. They never did.

"Stop," I muttered to no one in particular, gripping the edge of the shower wall to keep steady, but my voice cracked, betraying the weakness inside. "Stop-stop-stop!" And like a volcano the flames that I tried to hold back bursted out, overwhelming the water however there giggles and laughter never left me.

The heat surged through me, as if the fire inside my veins had finally been let loose. It curled around my skin like a suffocating blanket, relentless and scorching. The giggles, those haunting echoes of my baby siblings, only grew louder, more manic, as if they were feeding off the flame inside me. I could feel them—feel their little hands, their small bodies, brushing against me, even though I knew they weren't really there.

The steam from the shower mixed with the heat, creating a haze that blurred my vision. My chest heaved, my breath shallow and ragged as the fire inside me raged uncontrollably. It felt like the walls of the cabin were closing in, like I couldn't breathe, like I couldn't escape the suffocating weight of the past. The flames licked at my skin, but I barely felt them. It was the laughter—the laughter that wouldn't stop—that was burning me from the inside out.

"Stop!" I shouted again, my voice cracking, but the words only seemed to fuel the madness. The shadows danced around me, their giggles mingling with my own uncontrollable laughter, creating a twisted symphony of sound that echoed in the tiny bathroom. I felt my hands tighten against the shower wall, my nails digging into the tile, the water streaming over my body, cold and hot all at once.

I wanted to scream, wanted to throw it all out, but the madness wouldn't let me. It wrapped its claws around my heart, squeezing, until I could barely breathe.

"Jesse, please…" The voice cut through the fog. Mira.

Immediately my flames died out but through the mist blanketed my vision paired with my already blurred vision I couldn't see her or anything really but I tried tripping over the shower edge but I didn't care I searched for her through the hazy mist and blurry eyes but I couldn't find her.

Curling up in a ball I finally felt myself began to break, the shadows of my baby siblings dancing around me in a chorus of laughter while my tears began flowing from me.

"Come with us." They said with laughter and joy.

"Where are you?" I couldn't help but whisper quietly as I curled up on myself.