Taraji

Once, Taraji was just a shadow trailing behind Rajani, the quiet sibling, the listener. She never questioned their place in the Veil, not the way her sister did. Rajani dreamed of escape, clawed at it, and Taraji? She simply followed. Because where else was she supposed to go? But as the years dragged on and the Veil refused to break, something inside her began to splinter. The whispers came first. Soft at first. Murmurs curling at the edge of her mind, snickering, prodding, warning. She thought they were tricks, echoes from the dreamscape. But they never stopped. They spoke to her, laughed at her, screamed at her. And worst of all? They told her that Rajani would never get them out. But she had to believe. For her sister. So she started listening. She wandered closer to the Abyssal Wound, drawn to its unnatural silence. The closer she got, the more the voices faded, slipping away into nothingness. It was the only time she felt peace. Now, she obsesses over the escape, just as much as Rajani—but for different reasons. She doesn’t just want out. She needs out. Because if she stays too long, if she listens too much, she fears that one day, she’ll stop being Taraji altogether.