Hannah had learned quickly that there were some privileges one did not turn away
Hannah prowls Dr. Werther’s examining room.
On the bookshelf, in front of the leather-bound tomes — Encyclopedia of Nervous Ailments — is a large, ivory snake. She picks it up, runs her fingertip along the serpentine coils. The ivory is cold to the touch. The snake has three eyes. She stares at the third eye, above the other two. Look at me, and you will die, it seems to say.
She lifts it to eye level, and stares into the blankness of the third eye.
Her breath seems to catch, trapped in her chest.
A whiteness spreads around her, a terror of nothingness.
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