The rain had subsided, but the asphalt still glistened, dark and heavy under the dim light of the streetlamps. Water gathered in the cracks of the sidewalk, reflecting the city in flickering fragments, cut by each step Lina took. Her breath steamed quietly into the night. She pulled her jacket tighter around herself, as if the fabric could protect her from the chaos raging inside her.
The air smelled of metal and earth, fresh yet charged – like the moment before a storm that hadn't yet decided whether to break. In her mind, voices from recent days pressed against each other: Vanessa's biting laughter, Alaric's deep, calm words, Malaric's threatening silence that repeatedly inserted itself between memories.
She turned into her street. Warm lights glowed behind neighbors' curtains. A television played somewhere, the muffled humming of a refrigerator cutting through the silence. Everything was normal. Only she wasn't.
