Pharmaceutical Rewrite! Episode 10: Thunder Without Shelter
The Storm Cracks
The rain fell in sheets, relentless, unending. Each droplet hammered against the tin rooftops like bullets made of regret. The gutters overflowed, rivers of silver carving through the empty streets. Thunder cracked above, a jagged chorus that felt less like weather and more like an old wound screaming open again.
Marina stood beneath the broken awning of the ruined pharmacy, her coat soaked through, her hair plastered to her cheeks. Her hands trembled, but not from the cold. The chill was nothing compared to what lived inside her heart.
The storm outside was deafening, but the storm inside was worse—quieter, heavier, the kind that carved hollows into your bones.
In her hand, she clutched a photograph. The edges were worn, smudged with fingerprints and water stains. The ink was fading, but the face on it still burned in her memory.
Akio.
Her Akio. The one who once smiled without shadows trailing behind his lips. The one who taught her that gentleness wasn't weakness, that even in a broken world, healing was worth trying.
Now she stood in a timeline where he lived without her. A world where he looked at her but didn't truly see.
This Akio was happier. Whole. Untouched by her scars.
And that truth cut deeper than any storm.
Flashback - The Child in the Corner
The memory came unbidden, like lightning tearing through the night sky.
A small, suffocating room. Wallpaper yellowed and peeling. The sour stench of spilled liquor clung to the walls. Smoke stains crawled up to the ceiling like ghosts that never left.
In the corner, a child—her younger self—sat curled into a ball. Knees drawn tight against her stomach, arms hugging herself so hard it left marks. Her lip split open, a smear of dried blood painting the edge of her mouth. Tears tracked down her cheeks, but she didn't dare make a sound.
Silence wasn't safety. But noise was worse.
The door slammed. Heavy footsteps. A voice dripping with rage.
She flinched.
But the hand that reached out wasn't her father's cruelty.
It wasn't her mother's hollow smile, painted on to cover bruises.
It was small. Hesitant. A child's hand.
A kid.
Awkward, scrawny, with eyes too serious for his age. He didn't say much—just one quiet question, almost swallowed by the thunder outside.
"You okay?"
She didn't answer. She couldn't. But she reached out anyway.
She took his hand.
And that was the beginning. That was how Akio found her in her broken corner. Not in this timeline, no—but in hers. In the world where he had chosen her before she even knew how to choose herself.
A Shelter Made of Hands
Akio had taken her in, not out of obligation, not because he needed anything from her—but simply because someone had to.
Her Akio's difference compared to original was that as a child he had a rundown pharmacy then, half a lab, half a home, cluttered with vials and notebooks. Yet somehow, in that chaos, it became a shelter.
He taught her how to bandage wounds without trembling hands. How to mix salves carefully, not fearfully. How to speak to patients with kindness, even when she barely knew how to speak at all.
In time, she began to smile again. In time, she even laughed—awkward at first, then freer, as though her ribs were finally loosening.
And eventually... she loved.
But she never told him. How could she? How could someone fractured, stitched together from broken childhoods, be more than a shadow following in someone else's light?
So she kept it inside. Every word unsaid, every glance stolen.
And then she left when they were teenagers after she moved from the country. And never came back causing Akio to forget her after getting into a concution accident, breaking Marina's heart. And she never showed up again until they started working together again as employees after he had his heart broken from his friends deaths. But she tried her best to be by his side.
Present Day - The Imposter Timeline
Marina pressed her forehead against the rain-streaked glass, staring into the pharmacy.
This Akio—this world's Akio—stood at the counter, handing prescriptions to strangers. He smiled politely. He spoke with gentle calm. But his eyes... his eyes were blank pages. They had never written her into their story.
He did not remember her laughter. He did not remember her tears. He did not remember the day she first called his name.
To him, she was nothing but a regular customer. A stranger passing through the storm.
Every time he asked her name, her heart split open a little wider. Every polite "nice to meet you" crushed her with the weight of everything that had been erased.
And still, she played along. Still, she lived the lie she never wanted to live, but had to.
A Conversation with Ghosts
That night, she sat alone in her newly brought apartment she got months ago shortly after coming here, after she had her heart crushed from Rumane's distrust after coming here. Her knees tucked beneath her chin. The thunder outside rolled like war drums, each crash echoing against the silence she carried inside.
Her fingers shook as she held the photograph again.
On the back, in her Akio's handwriting, were words that had carried her through every nightmare:
"Even if we lose ourselves, someone will always find the way back."
Her breath hitched.
"Then where are you?" she whispered to the storm. "Why didn't you come back for me?"
The thunder answered with silence.
Her tears fell unchecked.
Flashback - The Night Before She Moved
She remembered the last night she'd sat by his side. Akio had been sick, his body breaking after fighting the Lab too long, too hard. His skin was hot with fever, his breath shallow.
She pressed a cold towel to his forehead.
"What if... what if you die?" she had whispered, her voice breaking.
He had laughed softly. Weakly. But still laughed.
"Then you live twice as hard for me."
"That's not fair."
"Nothing about life is fair. But it's still worth living. Especially if you make it yours."
And she had wanted to scream at him then, to tell him how much he meant, to beg him not to leave her. But she stayed silent. And silence became regret.
The Other Wife
In this timeline, his wife had already died.
And Marina had failed her too.
She had tracked the abusive husband. She had the evidence, the proof. But she hesitated. Afraid of disrupting too much. Afraid of breaking rules she didn't even fully understand. All from Rumane's anger that day...
By the time she moved, it was too late. Flames had already taken her.
And Marina had stood in the shadows, watching, powerless, as grief rewrote Akio's story without her.
Her failure pressed down heavier than any storm. And thus the reaching hand that day after she had arrived had saved Akio anyways all thanks to Rumane's kind unsavoring words.
The Confession That Never Came
How long had she worn the mask of a stranger? How long had she swallowed words until they turned into knives inside her throat?
Every day, she died a little more watching him live without her.
And now, she realized the weight he once carried. That numb despair. That hollowness that pressed down like winter on the soul.
This was what he had felt, wasn't it? This silence. This aching loneliness. This endless storm.
The realization nearly broke her.
The Meeting - No More Masks
The rain came harder, as though the sky itself was collapsing. The streets emptied. The city went quiet, swallowed by silver and shadow.
Marina staggered through the alley beside the pharmacy, her coat heavy, her body trembling. She was soaked, broken, barely holding herself upright.
And then—she saw him.
Akio.
Standing in the rain. No umbrella. Just his face turned upward, watching the clouds as though they were old friends. "And this was the night after Rumane cheered him up from his wife's death."
He turned. And his eyes landed on her.
For a moment, she couldn't breathe. He wasn't looking at a customer now. He wasn't seeing a stranger in disguise as a delivery person. For the first time. He was seeing her true self.
She took a shaky step forward.
"I... I'm not who you think I am," she said, her voice raw.
He didn't speak. He didn't move.
Another step. Her fists clenched, her stomach heaving.
"You saved me once. In another life. When I had nothing, you gave me a home. You gave me purpose. And I came here to save you back. But I failed. I couldn't save her. And I couldn't even save you."
The rain swallowed her words, but he heard. She could see it in his eyes.
And then—he stepped forward. Slowly. Gently.
And pulled her into a warm big hug. He needed someone to calm him down from stress and somebody he saw often.
No questions. No demands. No explanations.
Just warmth. Just silence. Just him.
Her tears fell against his shoulder, and for the first time in this endless storm, Marina felt something stir inside her.
The faintest spark of hope, and the 2 for some reason felt the despair inside one another that night.
Final Flashback - The First Smile As Kids
She remembered the day she first smiled again.
She had mixed two chemicals wrong. The beaker exploded in a flash of smoke and shattered glass. She had jumped back, terrified.
Akio had only laughed.
"That's why we wear goggles," he said, brushing shards from her coat.
"You're... you're not mad?"
"Nah. You're learning. That's the whole point."
And then, without realizing it, she had smiled.
Her first real smile in years.
Present - A Message to the Wind
Later that night, Marina stood on the pharmacy rooftop. The storm had finally passed, though the streets still glistened with water. The city below flickered with lights, each one a tiny star against the darkness.
She held the photograph one last time, then tucked it gently back into her coat.
Her voice was soft, but steady.
"Maybe... maybe this is the timeline I was meant to be in. Maybe you didn't come back for me... because you knew he would."
The wind stirred, cool and gentle. Not an answer, but not silence either.
And for the first time, Marina walked back into the pharmacy not as a ghost, not as a stranger—
—but as someone ready to be seen again.
THE END?
Pharmaceutical Rewrite! - By Locke Weisz...