—

They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die.

Lies.

All I see is snow.

Not the flames eating through steel, not the stench of gasoline and blood—I see snow, thick and endless, swallowing footprints that led nowhere. My body aches, shoulder burned, but my mind is frozen in that winter storm, hands trembling around a phone that never rang—a girl too stubborn to leave, waiting for someone who had already disappeared.

A broken cough rips from my throat, sharp and wet. The warehouse groans. Heat licks at my skin, curling my fingers into claws against the concrete. Somewhere behind me, glass shatters. Shadows twist, dancing with the fire. I should move. Crawl. Fight. But the weight of his fists still lingers, the memory of too-rough hands and whispered threats scraping against my ribs.

They wanted to break me. Make me beg.

They should've killed me instead.

The knife glints in the haze, inches from my grasp. I can't remember whose blood stains the blade—mine or his. Doesn't matter. My lungs sear with every breath, but it's not the fire that's choking me. It's his face surfacing in the smoke. The way he looked at me that day, unreadable, untouchable, like he had already made peace with losing me.

A bitter laugh scrapes up my throat.

Flames crackle, inching closer. A ceiling tile buckles, crumbling in a shower of embers. No one is coming. No sirens, no salvation.

Just the snow, the fire, and the truth I've buried since that winter:

I never stopped waiting.

A ceiling tile collapses, and the world dissolves into heat and darkness.

—