The pain was overwhelming, Kyle open his eyes, but he was inside. he looked around and realize that the room hosting him was the hospital.
The doctors were caling his name but he never answered, he just stood there recalling the scene that he saw seconds before the blackout.
"Sir, sir, sir,sir… Are you ok sir?!"- The unknown voice spoke to him.
He look to his right, and a worried young lady was trying to get his attention. It was a young doctor that was relieved that he
Had awoken from his slumber.
"Lily, mother, father, were are you?!"- He asked.
Then he remembered the last night clearly- "WERE IS MY FAMILY, ARE THEY OK? LILY? IS SHE OK? WHAT HAPPEN, TELL ME NOW!!"
He was disoriented, overwhelmed, paniking, and emotionally shattered. His hands were shaking and he realized that he was all bandaged, his limbs, torso, back and his head. The rush of adrenaline that accour after his awakening, aloud his emotions go wild.
"hey are you ok?" – she asked.-"How do you fell? Is the pain too much? You remember who you are right?!"
"What happen to my family? They are alright right?!"- kyle asked woried
"Unfortunately, you are the only survival from the landscape from last night."-she said in a sad teary-eyed expression.
Kyle froze, unable to breathe, as the weight of reality sank into his chest like an anchor. Then—he screamed. Not a cry, but a sound torn from a soul set on fire.
Anger, disbelief, sorrow, guilt—every emotion stabbed him at once, spiraling like blades in his chest. The image of her hand, so small and desperate, reaching for him and fading away, played over and over in his mind like a curse etched into his skull. He could still feel her fingers brushing his—then going limp.
He clawed at his own arms, punched the debris, begged the gods, the stars, anyone to take it back. But there was no answer. Only silence.
It felt like the gods had thrown him into a pit of memories, replaying the moment she died for eternity, whispering in his ear:
"You were there… and you still failed."
He sobbed until he choked, his cries dissolving into dry gasps.
He didn't just lose his family.
He lost the right to forgive himself.
Kyle didn't move for a long time. He just sat there, shaking, his hands covering his face as tears soaked through his fingers. The world felt cold, broken, and empty.
His chest hurt, not from the physical wounds, but from something deeper—something that felt like it was tearing him apart from the inside.
He kept seeing Lily's hand. Reaching. Then stopping.
Over and over.
"I was right there…" he whispered. "I could've saved her… I should have…"
He slammed his fist into the floor, once, twice, until blood dripped from his knuckles. But it didn't make the pain go away. Nothing could.
Everything was gone. And the worst part? He was still here.
The doctors hold him back while he was rampaging in the room, already unconscious but his feelings of guilt were so big that his body moved on its onw.
A week has passed after he first awoke and he is calm now, but at what price?
His is sitting in the garden, eyes half-lost in the sky, but not really seeing it. The breeze touches his skin, the sun warms his face, but nothing reaches his heart.
The flowers are blooming around him—Lily's favorite—but they only remind him of what's gone. He doesn't cry anymore. Not because he's healed, but because the tears just stopped coming.
There's a strange stillness in his chest, like something important is missing. Maybe it's peace. Maybe it's himself.
Six months. That's how long they tried to bring him back. Therapists spoke gently, their voices like wind brushing against stone. They asked questions, offered soft chairs, warm drinks, journals, breathing exercises—everything they thought would help. But Kyle wasn't there. Not really. He sat through the sessions, staring through the walls as if his soul had been left behind somewhere the moment he woke up. His answers were short, if he spoke at all. Most days, he just nodded or shook his head. They said it was trauma. They said healing takes time. But time only made the silence louder.
The pain wasn't loud anymore. It was quiet. Cold. Like sitting at the bottom of a dark lake, watching the world move above the surface. Some nights, he would wake up sweating, heart pounding from dreams he couldn't remember. Other nights, he wouldn't sleep at all. He just stared at the ceiling until morning broke.
They tried everything—drawing, writing, even music. Nothing worked. The only thing he drew was a broken clock, hands pointing nowhere. The only thing he wrote was a single name, over and over, until the pen bled through the paper.
"Progress takes time," they kept repeating.
But he wasn't moving forward. He wasn't moving at all.
His body was here, but his heart was somewhere else—still stuck in that moment, still reaching for a hand that never reached back.
The days blurred. The world kept spinning. People smiled at him like everything would be okay. But behind their kindness, Kyle saw pity.
And pity wasn't what he needed.
What he needed was to wake up in a world where none of it had happened. But he couldn't.
So he just sat there, breathing, surviving. Existing.
But hope wasn't complete lost, the hand that he was trying to reach finaly encountered him. It wasn't the soft small and cute hands of the little sister but a scarred big hands, but never the less, someone finaly reach out to him and grabed his hand.
It was a boy around his age, and for the first time in six month's that Kyle say someone else with color and precision.
He look directly to the kids eyes, and he say him slime.
The kid wanted to play with him, so he smiled and said:
"My name is LEO whats yours"
"K-K-KY-KYL-KYLE"- he answered
Leo didn't pull away. He just smiled.
"You don't have to talk much. Just sit with me, okay?"
Kyle nodded.
And for the first time in half a year, he wasn't drowning.
They sat together, saying nothing. Just breathing. Just existing.
Two broken hearts under the same sky.
Leo reached into his pocket and handed Kyle a tiny wooden carving of a dragon.
"It's my lucky charm," Leo whispered. "It keeps me brave."
Kyle held it gently in his hands, staring at it like it was magic. Neither of them spoke again. But the silence… no longer hurt.
And somewhere, far away, something ancient opened its eyes.