The sky was a deep, impossible blue the day Doretha died. The kind of blue you see in travel magazines, so perfect it looks fake. Doretha had called it a "good omen" when she picked me up that morning, her old car rattling like a can of bolts but her smile bright enough to power a small city. I, Haruka, just grunted and threw my backpack in the back. I was never a morning person. She was the adventurer, the one who dragged me, her perpetually indoorsy best friend, out into the sun.
"Come on, Haru!" she'd said, her voice buzzing with excitement. "The view from Eagle's Peak is going to be epic today. No clouds, no haze, just us and the world."
And for a few hours, she was right. The trail was beautiful, winding through ancient trees that filtered the sunlight into dancing patterns on the forest floor. The air smelled of damp earth and pine needles. We talked about everything and nothing-stupid school drama, the latest anime we were binging, what we were going to do after graduation. Doretha wanted to travel the world. I just wanted to figure out what to have for dinner next week.
The accident was so stupid. So mundane. It wasn't some dramatic cliffhanger fall from a movie. We were on a narrow, rocky section of the trail, not even the most dangerous part. She turned to say something to me, her foot slipped on a patch of loose gravel, and she went down. It was a short fall, maybe ten feet onto a ledge below the main path. But she landed wrong. I heard a crack that sounded way too loud in the quiet forest, followed by a sharp, pained cry that cut off abruptly.
My heart hammered against my ribs. "Doretha!" I scrambled to the edge, my own feet slipping, catching myself on a tree root. She was lying on her side, her leg twisted at an angle that made my stomach churn. Her eyes were wide with shock and pain.
"I think-I think it's broken, Haru," she gasped, her face pale.
"Okay, okay, don't move," I said, my voice shaking. "I'll call for help. It's fine. We'll get you out of here."
I pulled out my phone. My hands were trembling so badly I almost dropped it. The screen lit up, a beacon of hope in the dimming light. And then I saw the words.
No Service.
I stared at them. I turned the phone off and on again. I held it up high, pointing it in every direction like some kind of desperate ritual. Nothing. The words mocked me. No Service. No Service. No Service.
Panic, cold and sharp, clawed its way up my throat. "It's not working," I whispered, the words feeling like stones in my mouth.
Doretha's breathing was getting shallower. "Try again."
I did. Again and again. We were in a dead zone, a pocket of wilderness the invisible waves of communication couldn't penetrate. We were completely, utterly alone. The sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in brilliant shades of orange and pink-a cruel, beautiful sunset for a world that was falling apart.
"I'm going to have to leave you," I said, the decision tasting like acid. "I have to go get help."
She nodded, a single tear tracing a path through the dirt on her cheek. "Be careful, Haru."
I promised I would. I told her I'd be back as fast as I could. I left her my water bottle and my jacket. The hike down was a blur of terror. Every shadow looked like a monster, every rustle of leaves was a threat. I ran when I could, my lungs burning, my legs screaming in protest. All I could think about was the look in her eyes.
It took me almost two hours to get back to a point where my phone finally, blessedly, chirped with a single bar of signal. I dialed the emergency number, my voice a frantic, sobbing mess as I tried to explain where we were.
They found me by the roadside, and I guided them back up the trail. But by the time we got there, it was too late. The paramedics said it was a compound fracture. She'd gone into shock and had likely bled internally. She was gone. She had died alone, on a cold ledge, while I was running for a help that came too late.
The days that followed were a thick, suffocating fog. The funeral, the well-meaning but useless condolences, the pitying looks from my classmates. Everyone said it wasn't my fault. An accident. A tragedy. But they didn't understand. They weren't there. They didn't see the two words on my phone screen that had signed her death warrant.
No Service.
It was the silence that haunted me. The dead air on the phone. The quiet of the forest after her cry. The vast, empty space where her voice used to be. I had been completely helpless, my modern, connected world shrinking to the size of a useless plastic and glass rectangle in my hand. I had everything, and I had nothing. And in that silence, I had lost everything that mattered.