City Hospital
The ground was wet.
Not with rain.
With blood.
Thick, dark, sticky blood that soaked into the dirt, spreading out in uneven shapes. The air slled like rust, sweat, and death.
Boots crunched slowly across the broken earth. Step by step. One foot dragged behind slightly. The man limped, but his grip never loosened.
In his fist—
He was dragging a young woman.
No, not a woman anymore. A bleeding ss of skin and bone, torn apart, barely breathing.
Her body thudded behind him, limp and helpless.
Her arms were gone.
Not bandaged. Not treated. Just... gone. Torn off like old paper, shoulder wounds open and dirty. Her legs weren’t any better—cut off from the knees, with just ruined cloth and stringy flesh hanging from the ends.
Her head lolled to the side as he dragged her.
Every few seconds, her broken, bruised face would twitch—like her body still wanted to fight for life, even if her soul didn’t.
She wasn’t screaming.
She didn’t have the strength.
Just small, choked sounds. A quiet sob. A half-whimper that got caught in her dry throat.
One of her eyes was swollen shut. The other blinked slowly, barely able to stay open.
Her lips moved.
A whisper—like a ghost, like soone too tired to even cry anymore.
"P-please... s-stop..."
But the man didn’t stop.
He didn’t say a word.
His long purple hair fell over his shoulders, stained with sweat and specks of blood. His chest rose and fell slowly—too slowly for what he was doing. He looked calm. Blank. As if dragging her was the sa as carrying firewood.
They moved through a field.
If anyone had seen it... if anyone had heard...
They would’ve thrown up.
Because this wasn’t just so wounded girl. This was torture. Plain and brutal. Her back was raw, scraped open from being pulled over rocks and mud. Her torn clothes clung to her body only because of the blood that glued it to her skin.
And still—she looked at him.
Her one working eye widened just a little as she stared at the side of his face. At that sharp jaw. At that ssy purple hair. That faint scar on his neck.
She knew him.
Even now. Even after all this.
"...Wh-why..." she croaked, her voice cracking like glass.
Her lips trembled again.
Her head barely lifted.
"...Wh... why, Satteus...?"
Suddenly the scene changed.
’Hm?’ A slow, steady beep echoed into the stillness.
Beep...
Beep...
Beep...
Arvia’s eyelashes fluttered as if they didn’t belong to her; the sa dream, unlike before, ca once again.
Her mouth tasted like rust. Her throat was so dry, it scratched with every breath. Her head throbbed—not sharp, not stabbing—just a deep, drowning ache, like her brain had been soaked in sorrow and left to rot. Everything felt... wrong. Too heavy. Like her own skin had turned against her.
She didn’t open her eyes.
She couldn’t.
Not yet.
Even existing was too much.
Her fingers twitched, brushing against stiff, scratchy sheets. Her ribs protested with a quiet burn. The cold air prickled against her bruises. And sowhere, machines humd and beeped with fake calm, as if pretending that everything was still okay.
She blinked.
Once.
Then again.
White ceiling. A slow-turning fan. The blinding sting of overhead lights.
"...What...?"
The word scraped past her lips. Thin. Weak. So small it felt like it might shatter if anyone listened too hard.
Her head turned—and agony blood in her neck like wildfire. Her body cried out with every inch moved. Her breath hitched. Her ribs scread. Her shoulder pulsed. Her leg was wrapped, useless.
She winced.
Hard.
It hurt just to exist.
Her eyes scanned the room.
White curtains. Plastic chairs. Machines blinking in green. IV bags. A cup of half-lted ice left untouched. The blanket barely kept her warm—but her body was cold in a way no cloth could fix.
No footsteps.
No familiar voices.
No one.
"...Where... am I...?" she whispered, not because she didn’t know, but because she couldn’t believe it.
Her own voice cracked as if it had forgotten how to speak.
She tried to sit up.
She shouldn’t have.
Every inch of movent pulled at pain buried deep inside. Her body trembled. Her palms shook, wrapped in bandages. She wasn’t made of muscle right now—she was made of glass. Of cuts and aches and mory.
But she pushed anyway.
Because she had to.
Because sothing inside her needed to rise.
And then—
It crashed over her.
Like a wave she didn’t see coming.
Like a scream that had waited until she was alone to be heard.
The blood.
The sound of tal tearing open.
Satteus’s face turning back.
Her dad was hovering in a floating car in mid-air before the crash.
The slam. The crash.
That one final push.
The mont she was thrown out—like she was the last thing worth saving.
Her eyes snapped open, wide.
"Ah..." The soul cried out in the suffering of loss.
Tears ca fast. Hot. As if they’d been waiting behind a dam that had just broken.
Her lips quivered. Her breath beca a hiccup. Her body began to shake—and the monitor beside her picked up its pace.
A nurse walked past—young, her hair tied back, focused on so chart at the IV stand.
Arvia stared at her.
Eyes glassy. Hollow. Too empty to hold hate, too broken to ask for help.
And then her lips moved again.
No anger. No scream.
Just a whisper—small, raw, stripped of everything.
"Can’t you just kill ...?"
The nurse froze.
"...What...?" she turned, blinking fast. "Wh-what did you just say? Wait—wait, I need to get the doctor!"
She fumbled and rushed out.
Arvia didn’t follow her with her eyes.
She didn’t care.
The tears kept falling.
Heavier now.
Like they belonged there.
And then, slowly—like a marionette with its strings cut—she pulled the blanket off.
Her legs trembled as they t the cold floor.
She winced.
Everything inside her begged to stop. Her knees threatened to collapse. But she stood.
Barefoot. Shaking. Alone.
Her hand brushed the table—knocking the cup over. lted ice spilled like forgotten monts, dripping onto the floor.
She didn’t care.
Her body was here, but her soul... wasn’t.
It had been left behind. Sowhere in that wreck. Sowhere with Satteus. Sowhere in the last breath of her father.
Her eyes stared at nothing.
Just... space.
Why wasn’t her dad here?
Why wasn’t Satteus helping her stand, like always?
Why wasn’t anyone holding her hand?
Why was she the one left behind?
Her breath hitched. Her chest twisted. Her stomach folded in on itself.
And then—
She broke.
"Hic...."
Like sothing cracked open inside her and didn’t stop breaking.
A sound escaped her—deep and raw. Not just a sob. Not just pain. It was a cry that didn’t belong in this world. A sound from sowhere far beneath grief.
Her knees hit the floor.
She folded.
Collapsed.
Arms curling around her own ribs like she could hold herself together. Her forehead hit the cold tiles. Her tears mixed with the dirt on the floor.
"Sob... ughh... d-dad... sniff... Satteus."
She didn’t scream.
She didn’t ask for help.
She just wept.
"I-I am sorry... if only I had died..."
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