"I can't believe this is happening."
The words rattled through my skull, useless, weak—drowned out by the only image that mattered: her body jerking under the downpour of bullets. The love of my life, shredded before my eyes. Her scream had been stolen, cut short, replaced by the crack of gunfire echoing in my chest.
I should have died with her.
Pant—Gasp—Pant.
My lungs clawed for air as I tore through the forest. Branches lashed my face, ripping skin, wet leaves slapped against me, the mud sucked at my shoes like it wanted to drag me under. My legs burned, my chest heaved, but the sound of boots crashing behind me was louder than my heartbeat. Louder than my grief.
Gunfire cracked in the distance, each shot splintering the night, chasing me long after the bullets missed their mark. My ears rang with echoes of her final scream, the forest itself trembling with it.
"There! The other one went that way!"
Their voices split the night like blades, hunting me, dragging me deeper into a nightmare I couldn't wake from.
I stumbled, caught myself on a tree slick with rain, then pushed forward. Every step was survival. Every breath was agony. I could feel her blood still warm on my hands, sticky, clinging—ghosting me even as the rain tried to wash it away.
All of this is my fault.
Every last bullet, every scream, every drop of blood—they belong to me.
I shouldn't have been there. I shouldn't have let her come. I shouldn't have indulged in—
No. Not now. Not yet.
If I thought about it—if I named it—I'd collapse. I'd stop running. I'd let them find me. Maybe I wanted them to. Maybe I deserved it.
For a heartbeat, I swore I saw her between the trees—pale, broken, beckoning me forward. My mind bled lies into the dark, feeding me ghosts I couldn't afford to follow.
Her face—ruined and still beautiful, even in death—dragged me forward.
I crashed through the undergrowth, lungs shredding, heart tearing itself apart inside my chest. The forest seemed endless, a graveyard of shadows and trees. My vision blurred with rain and tears, the world breaking apart in flashes of lightning across my mind.
Still, I ran.
Because if I stopped—
If I slowed—
Her death would be for nothing.
I couldn't let the last piece of her die inside me. Not yet.
But my body betrayed me. My legs were jelly, my lungs knives. Each breath was a blade sawing at my ribs, each heartbeat a hammer striking nails into my skull. Every step felt stolen, borrowed from a future I didn't deserve. I knew it wouldn't last. Sooner or later, the forest would claim me—or their bullets would.