The first thing was the sound.

  A steady beep. Measured. Close.

  Then came the ache.

  Holly stirred with a low, involuntary sound. Her whole body ached in places that didn’t make sense, like pain had found new ways to live inside her. Her chest was tight, something wrapped around it. Her head throbbed behind her eyes. There was a bandage there, she could feel it pulling slightly as she moved. The hospital gown scratched at her shoulder.

  The world returned slowly.

  The light above her was soft. Not the sterile blue of overhead fluorescents, but warmer—muted by time of night and low power. Her mouth was dry. Her lips were cracked. She swallowed and winced. Her vision swam. Blurry shapes filled the room around her.

  Four figures. Close. Watching.

  As the haze began to clear, she saw them: Jordan. Maddy. Lila. Marissa.

  They all turned at once as she shifted.

  Jordan moved first, stepping quickly to the side of the bed. He didn’t say anything. Just reached out, hand hovering at her shoulder.

  “Hey,” he said, gently. “Hey, Hol. You’re okay.”

  Holly blinked at him, her breath catching. Her ribs complained at the motion, but something else pushed through the fog now.

  Memory.

  The cab.

  The lights.

  The impact.

  Ariel.

  She turned her head, eyes wide and wild now. “Where’s Ariel?”

  The room changed.

  Maddy brought a trembling hand to her mouth, eyes wide and shining with horror, as though she’d been bracing for this moment and still wasn’t ready. Lila turned away sharply, her shoulders shaking as silent sobs overtook her, tears sliding down her cheeks unchecked. Marissa didn’t even try to stay upright—she folded inward, collapsing into the visitor’s chair, burying her face in both hands as her whole body shook with grief. The quiet that followed wasn’t just still—it was punishing, as the room itself recoiled from the weight of the truth.

  Holly’s gaze snapped back to Jordan, her voice breaking as she asked again, louder this time, desperate and shaking, “Where is she, Jordan? Where’s Ariel?”

  His face was breaking.

  He swallowed, once. Twice. His hand took hers.

  “They tried,” he said, voice breaking now, the words jagged. “The paramedics... they did everything they could. But...” His throat worked, but nothing came. He pressed his lips together, eyes shining, his shoulders shaking with the effort to hold himself steady. He looked down, then back at her, the silence stretching, suffocating. Finally, the words tore out of him, rough and unwilling. “She was gone before they got to her.”

  Holly’s body crumpled like paper.

  It didn’t register all at once. For a beat, her mind rejected it—like it had heard wrong, like the words Jordan had spoken were meant for someone else. She stared past him, unblinking, mouth parted as if something might come out, but nothing did. The words circled in her head without meaning.

  Gone.

  Her body suddenly felt cold. Her fingers, her lungs, her head. For a long, suspended moment she hung there, refusing to believe what she had heard, clinging to the silence as though it might change if she held on long enough. It was like falling backwards into water, every breath suspended, each heartbeat stretched into an eternity. The world dimmed around the edges, muffled like cotton had been stuffed in her ears. Everything slowed, dragging her deeper into the pause before the truth could crush her.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  And then it did.

  The truth crashed through the denial with deafening finality.

  And she broke.

  The sob ripped from her with a violence that startled even her. It wasn’t a sound of grief—it was the howl of her soul being torn apart. Holly collapsed into Jordan’s arms, her body folding like it couldn’t support her anymore, like the truth had struck her physically. Her ribs flared white-hot with pain, but she didn’t care. She didn’t even register it. There was only the splintering, breathless agony tearing her open from the inside.

  “No,” she gasped. “No, no, Jordan! Please! Please no!”

  Jordan held her tighter, but it didn’t help. Nothing could help. His hand trembled against the back of her head as he rocked her slightly, unable to speak through his own unraveling.

  “I’m so sorry,” he managed, choking on it. “Holly, I’m so, so sorry.”

  But Holly didn’t hear him. Or if she did, it didn’t register. Her body convulsed with sobs that scraped her throat raw. She pounded a fist once, twice against his chest, before clutching him with both arms, her nails digging in. “Bring her back!” she screamed, the words ragged and breaking. “Please, Jordan, please—tell me she’s not gone! Tell me it isn’t real!” Her voice dissolved into choking sobs, desperation and denial clawing out of her throat. Her screams became animal again, wordless, the sound of a soul coming apart.

  She screamed for Ariel. She screamed with every ragged breath, her throat torn and raw, as if the sheer force of her grief might rewind time. Her voice cracked into pieces, echoing back to the last time she'd heard Ariel laugh—really laugh—at some awful pun Holly had whispered. That sound, so vivid in memory, felt unreachable now. She screamed like she could claw her way back to that moment. Like if she screamed hard enough, loud enough, it would echo across time and pull Ariel back with it. She screamed like she could pull her back from wherever she’d gone. Like if she just said her name enough, if she loved her hard enough, Ariel would open the door and walk in like it had all been some horrible mistake. Her voice cracked, splintered. Still, she screamed. Because what else was left...?

  ...But no one answered.

  She stayed in Jordan’s arms, her grief so loud it drowned the world, until the pain overtook even her voice, and she was left shaking and soundless in the wreckage of a future stolen.

  The others came to her slowly, like drawn by gravity.

  Maddy knelt beside the bed first, her face streaked with tears. She reached out a hand, placed it gently on Holly’s back, but said nothing. What could she say?

  Marissa came next, her voice a cracked whisper. “Hol…” But it broke off before it could become anything more. Her throat clenched around the words.

  Lila stood at the foot of the bed, arms wrapped tightly around herself, her shoulders trembling. She opened her mouth twice before anything came out. “We—we’re here,” she said, almost inaudible. “We’re right here.”

  None of it reached Holly.

  She didn’t move. She didn’t look at them. Her face was buried in Jordan’s chest, her hands clenched tight into his shirt. The only sound from her now was the wet, aching sob that rose again and again, like her body refused to stop even when her voice had nothing left.

  They stayed like that. The four of them gathered around her, their words small, their hands helpless, while Holly grieved a love too big to be held by a single body.

  The rest of the morning passed in silence.

  Holly didn’t speak. She barely moved. The nurses came and went. A doctor murmured something to Jordan in the hallway. Her vitals were checked. A cup of water sat untouched by her bedside. Jordan tried more than once to offer her food—a banana, a container of yogurt, something small—but Holly only blinked, slowly, and gave no response.

  She lay curled on her side, her back half to the room, tears sliding across the bridge of her nose and soaking into the pillow. They came and went without warning—sometimes in quiet streams, other times in sudden tremors. She stared into the middle distance, her eyes glassy and unseeing. Time had collapsed. She existed in the space between heartbeats, between breaths, between screams that no longer came out loud.

  Maddy stepped close around mid-afternoon. She knelt at the bedside again, her hand lightly brushing Holly’s blanket-covered arm.

  “Hey,” she whispered gently. “I—I have to go. I have to pick up Lin from Jordan’s parents.”

  Holly’s eyes closed immediately, her body tensing.

  And then she cried again. Harder than she had in hours.

  Maddy’s face fell. “Oh, Hol…”

  But Holly wasn’t listening. Not to the room. Not to anything.

  Lin.

  Lin was going to ask where Ariel was.

  Lin would run in, arms wide, expecting a hug. She’d ask if Auntie Red was okay. She’d ask when they were going to play again. When she’d get to hear her voice again. Her laugh. Her stories.

  And she wouldn’t understand.

  Not really.

  How do you explain death to a child who still believes in magic? How do you tell her that her brightest light had been snuffed out in the dark of a highway, taken before anyone had the chance to say goodbye?

  Holly’s whole body shuddered.

  Ariel had read to her.

  Held her hand crossing streets.

  Tucked a fox plush into her backpack with a note before her first day of school.

  Lin had drawn them both with big smiles and the words My Aunties Are My Best Friends in purple marker. Ariel had pinned it to the fridge like it was a masterpiece, refusing to take it down even after the corners started curling. Holly remembered how proud Lin had been, beaming as she explained which stick figure was which. At the time, Holly had laughed and kissed the top of her head, thinking they had years ahead of them to collect more drawings, more memories. She’d meant to buy a frame for it. Ariel had said they should laminate it, keep it safe. Now it felt like the most sacred thing they owned.

  Holly clutched the blanket tighter to her chest.

  How was she supposed to explain that Ariel was never coming back?

  How was she supposed to shatter Lin's entire world...

  And again—Holly crumpled into despair…