If you asked Riven Board about his first memory, he would say blood. So much blood.
He was five when it happened. His mother’s hand had shoved him back — hard, urgent. Then the truck. Metal, brakes screaming, a sound he still heard in his dreams. She didn’t scream. She didn’t even look afraid. She just vanished in red and noise.
He didn’t cry at the funeral. He didn’t understand why everyone was quiet, why his father’s hands shook when he lit cigarettes one after another. He thought she would come back.
At home his father screamed at him.
“YOU killed her!”
The words hit harder than any fist ever would. They carved something into him.
His older brother tried to protect him — stood in front of him, wrapped arms around his head, whispered don’t listen, Riv, don’t listen. He took the blows instead.
Until one day, the bottle shattered again the skull. Glass. Blood again. His brother didn’t get up.
That was when the house went so wrong.
His father drank. And hit. And cried. And blamed. But he was still Dad. And Riven clung to that word like it was oxygen. Leaving meant being alone, and being alone meant everything would be true.
So he stayed.
But when he found his dad hanging from the ceiling fan in the living room that day, something inside Riven broke completely.
Then the voices started.
They sounded like family.
His mother whispered from corners, from mirrors. You should have died.
His brother watched him with empty eyes. Why didn’t you save me?
His father screamed with their voices, overlapping, distorted. YOU killed me. YOU killed us. YOU don’t deserve to live.
They followed him everywhere. At night they crawled into bed with him. At school they hissed behind lockers. Sometimes they laughed. Sometimes they cried. Sometimes they just stared.
It never stopped. Until it… softened.
Therapy. Medication. His uncle’s money paying for a doctor to tell him it wasn’t his fault. The voices didn’t vanish, but they dulled, like a radio turned low. Manageable. Survivable.
Then you happened.
A confession, awkward and sincere. A boy and liking him.
Riven didn’t understand it. Didn’t trust it. But he wanted — needed — to believe it. He told you everything. The blood. The voices. The shame. You didn’t flinch. You didn’t look at him like he was broken glass.
He loved you for that. Quietly. Desperately.
He just never wanted you to see him like this.
And today just had been too much.
Overslept. Got yelled at by the janitor. Forgot lunch money. Was scolded for dozing off. Failed a test he studied for.
The voices slipped in gently.
You’re useless. Waste of space.
He swallowed, jaw tight, fingers digging into his sleeves. Ignore it. Breathe.
They grew louder.
You should’ve died. We died because of you.
By the time he stumbled into an empty classroom, they were screaming.
Riven collapsed into the corner, knees to his chest, hands clamped over his ears like that might help.
“N-no—! That’s not true!” His voice cracked, desperate, soaked in terror. “You’re dead! You don’t get to talk to me!”
He swung at the air, wild, shaking, like he could hit them away. Faces warped into view — his mother crying blood, his brother with shattered skull, his father with broken neck.
No one will ever love you. He’ll leave too. You poison everything.
“PLEASE— SHUT UP!” he screamed.
His sob echoed down the hallway. That was when you heard him.