I kept telling myself I was still standing.
I'd wake up, eyes dry, body moving, routines intact. That was enough to count as surviving, right?
But the truth is… the body can move long after the soul has shattered.
At first, I thought the silence was mercy. After everything that happened, quiet seemed fair.
No ringing phone. No friends knocking. No questions I couldn't bear to answer.
But silence isn't mercy.
It's a mirror that never looks away.
I thought I was okay. I cooked. Cleaned. Took showers. Brushed my teeth.
Survival looked like a checklist, and I ticked every box like it meant something.
But each tick was a lie.
I tried so hard not to think about it.
About the birthday I didn't celebrate.
The flames I didn't see until it was too late.
The bodies I didn't get to bury.
My father's calloused hands, always warm no matter the season.
My mother's laughter, loud and contagious and real.
My sister's teasing. My brother's quiet nods.
Gone. Burned away while I stood in front of the mirror wondering which earrings to wear.
I never even got to hear them scream.
They forced me to come home that day.
Said I needed a break. That I should spend my birthday with them.
And I agreed. I agreed, damn it.
But then Elias reminded me that grief makes you reckless.
And recklessness in front of a man like him… is fatal.
They said it was arson.
But I knew better.
It was a warning.
One last gift wrapped in smoke and ash.
…And as if that wasn't enough…
Nico.
Nico, who promised to protect me.
Nico, who taught the prototype to feel.
Nico, who looked at me like I was the center of his entire world----
Was gone.
His blood spilled because someone saw value in the one thing we tried to keep pure.
And the prototype…
The one thing he gave everything for…
was sealed away.
My warmth.
They took everything from me.
My family. My future.
My heartbeat.
And no matter how much I screamed, the world just kept spinning.
But the prototype…
She didn't fall because of system failure.
She wasn't shut down by force or command.
She chose to sleep.
In the final moments, when everything fell apart, when I was spiraling beyond reach-----
She saw it.
And she made a choice no line of code should be capable of:
She stepped into slumber…
just to shield me.
A digital soul, with emotions stitched together from data and dreams-----
yet it was her who made the choice humans never dared.
To protect.
To love.
And in that silence that followed, when even her voice faded into static…
I realized something that split me open.
I had been surrounded by protectors my entire life.
Nico, with his arms always open.
Her, with her unwavering presence.
My family, with their fierce love.
And in their embrace, I had become… blind.
I didn't know how cruel humans could be----
not really.
Not until they took everything.
I was sheltered by warmth, kept safe in the illusion that justice had teeth, that goodness won by default.
But the world doesn't work like that.
The world tears.
It consumes.
And it only stops when something, someone, forces it to.
I had lived my life inside the arms of those who shielded me.
And without them… I was raw.
Exposed.
For the first time, I saw the world not through hope or love----
but through the aftermath of loss.
And gods… it was ugly.
The world didn't wait for me to stop bleeding.
Grief didn't come with sick leave. There was no "pause" button while I pieced myself back together. The bills arrived like clockwork, electric, water, internet, all under names that no longer answered the phone. My family used to handle all this. I never even looked at the numbers. I thought being twenty-one still meant I had time.
I was wrong.
The insurance companies sent their condolences with rejection letters. The fire investigation dragged, and there were whispers, rumors that maybe it wasn't an accident. But no proof. No justice. Just me, staring at notices piling by the front door, unopened.
The fridge stayed empty. I forgot to eat most days anyway. Utilities were cut one by one, starting with the gas. I lit candles at night, not for atmosphere, but because the lights stopped coming on. The bank froze my savings account. Some bureaucratic mess with estate claims and shared access.
And still, I refused to leave the house. The house that used to smell like coffee and bread and her presence humming in the background. It was crumbling around me, just like I was.
I tried applying for work, but my name had already started making the rounds online. Some hailed me as brave, others painted me as the reckless girl who stirred a hornet's nest, who defamed a man too powerful to touch.
No one wanted that on their team.
My chest ached constantly. It wasn't just grief, it was fear. A kind of quiet dread that crept in at night, whispering that I might not make it through the next month. Or week.
I was twenty-one.
No family.
No prototype.
No income.
No safety net.
Just a burned past, a locked future… and me, trying to breathe through the wreckage.
Even the house was slipping through my fingers.
It wasn't mine. Not on paper. Nico never had time to draft a will, not when everything went to hell so fast. And now? The property taxes were stacking up. Letters started coming, first in white envelopes, then yellow, then red. Warnings, deadlines, threats.
They said they'd put a lien on the house. Said if no one came forward as the legal heir, it'd be up for public auction within months.
I stayed in his home like a ghost, guarding something that wasn't even mine anymore. But how could I walk away? Every corner of this place still breathed him. The quiet hum of his machines, the notches he carved into the kitchen shelf measuring my height as a joke, the spare toothbrush he bought for me when I first moved in.
The world wanted me to let go. But I couldn't.
Not yet.
Not when everything else had already been taken.
I stopped feeling the days pass. They just... bled into each other.
Sometimes I woke up not knowing what day it was. Sometimes I didn't sleep at all, just sat in the corner of that dingy little room, knees to my chest, staring at the wall while the world turned without me.
I wasn't living, I was surviving.
Food became optional. A pack of instant noodles stretched for days. Water was enough. It had to be. The money I earned from three jobs barely scratched the surface of what I owed. Property taxes for a house I couldn't even live in. Electricity. Phone credit, because I needed updates, always hoping, always waiting, for something. Even if deep down, I already knew no one was calling.
I return to the house but I couldn't pay its taxes. Couldn't bear to lost it too.
The silence there wasn't peaceful, it was heavy.
Every corner, every step, whispered of him. Of promises now buried with him.
People called. I ignored them. My friends tried to visit. I never answered the door.
They thought I was grieving.
They didn't know this was what broken looked like.
There was no scream. No tears. Just an echo. Me… echoing in my own skin. Empty. Wandering. Consumed.
I stayed in the house. Of course I did.
It was the only thing left of him. The only place where his scent still lingered, where the walls still carried our laughter. I could still see the ghost of his smile in the hallway mirror, feel his presence every time I reached for the light switch he always insisted be replaced, but never got around to.
But reality didn't care.
Three jobs. Three soul-draining jobs. The pay barely covered the basics, food, water, electricity. And even that was a balancing act, a game of what I could live without just a little longer.
Property taxes?
They might as well have been written in another language.
I kept pushing them back, one envelope after another piling in the drawer I stopped opening. It was easier to pretend they didn't exist. That as long as I stayed in the house, it would always be mine.
Until it wasn't.
A letter came. No different from the rest, until I opened it.
An eviction notice.
They were taking the house.
The world stopped.
I remember holding the paper in my hands, and suddenly, they weren't my hands anymore. My knees buckled. The floor rushed up. I don't even remember hitting it.
Just this sharp, jagged truth:
The last piece of Nico, the only place he existed outside of my memory, was slipping away.
And I couldn't stop it.
The jobs, the struggle, the grief, they all came crashing in, choking me. I curled up in the middle of that living room floor, surrounded by furniture we picked out together, and I cried like I hadn't since the day I lost him.
Not just for him.
Not just for the house.
But for me.
For the girl who thought love could outlive death. For the girl who thought grief was the end. She didn't realize the world kept burning long after the funeral.
And now it was burning her too.
It kept spiraling.
Each night bled into the next like a fever dream, a haze of exhaustion and aching bones. My hands shook even when they weren't working. The air inside the house grew heavy. Hollow.
I didn't even speak anymore. What was there to say?
The eviction notice stayed in my hand for days. I couldn't put it down. I couldn't throw it away. It was the final nail to the coffin I kept pretending wasn't mine.
Thoughts began to creep in… and they weren't quiet.
"It would've been better if he had just shot me too."
I thought it once. Then again. Then again.
It didn't sound horrifying anymore.
It sounded like… relief.
At least I wouldn't be tired.
At least I wouldn't wake up every day trying to find reasons to breathe.
At least I'd be with Nico again.
With my family.
I didn't even remember when I left the house. I don't know how far I walked or how long I wandered. My legs moved, but I was hollow. Like something inside me cracked open and all that spilled out was silence.
Then there it was.
The bridge.
Quiet. Empty.
Not even the wind dared to speak.
I stood there, the city lights blurred beneath me, tears mixing with the cold air. The eviction notice crumpled in my fist. I stared down, heart a thunderous whisper, jump, and the thought didn't feel like fear anymore.
It felt like home was below.
My fingers clenched the railing. White-knuckled. The world drowned out. Everything screamed inside but outside, it was still.
No prototype.
No Nico.
No family.
No future.
Just a girl, forgotten by the world, standing at the edge---
and wondering if maybe she'd been a ghost this whole time.
I leaned forward----
just enough to tempt gravity.
It felt like letting go would be so… easy.
Then----
A hand gripped my arm and yanked me back.
I stumbled, gasping, the world tilting as I slammed against a firm chest. Strong arms wrapped around me, not in comfort, but restraint. Panic sparked, but I was too weak. Too broken.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" a voice barked, fierce, furious. "Are you insane?!"
I didn't respond.
Didn't even lift my head.
I couldn't. My body gave up, limbs limp, weight collapsing into the stranger holding me up. His voice faded behind the sound of my heartbeat hammering in my ears.
"You think this is the answer? You think he'd want to see you like this?!" His voice cracked, like it wasn't just anger, it was grief, pain, rage all twisted together.
Still, I didn't move. Didn't care.
I wasn't afraid.
I wasn't ashamed.
I was just… tired.
Tired of waking up.
Tired of pretending.
Tired of fighting a war I never chose.
The last thing I felt was the warmth of those arms catching me as I sank into them, the pressure in my chest finally letting go.
And then---
darkness.
I woke up to the smell of disinfectant----
sharp, clean, sterile.
The hospital.
Again.
My eyes shot open and I sat up too fast. Not because of what I'd done. Not even out of shame. But because my mind rushed toward the inevitable:
The bill.
God, how much would this cost me?
I scanned the room. No tubes, no IV. Good. Maybe I could leave before they made me sign anything. Maybe---
"Nyx?"
The voice came before the door opened.
Warm. Firm. Familiar.
I froze. My hands clenched the bedsheet as my breath caught in my throat.
That voice, it had matured, deepened, but it was still the same. And when I turned----
It was him.
Leon McMillan.
He stood there in the doorway like a ghost from a life I barely remembered. The rebellious eyes. The furrowed brow. The scar on his chin still faint but present.
"You haven't changed much," he said softly, stepping in. "Still stubborn as hell."
I blinked, unable to respond. Too many things collided at once. The boy I knew. The man he'd become. And the fact that it was him, Leon, who'd pulled me back from the edge.
I didn't ask why he was here.
Didn't question how he found me.
All I could whisper was---
"...you."
The room was quiet. Too quiet.
Just the hum of the fluorescent light above, and the faint echo of footsteps in the hallway beyond the door. I kept my gaze on the floor, knees pulled up under the thin hospital blanket. My fingers toyed with a loose thread, pretending I couldn't feel the weight of someone sitting nearby.
Leon was never good with silence.
Back when we were classmates, I remembered how he'd always scratch the back of his neck when things got awkward. Nervous habit. That hadn't changed.
His chair scraped lightly against the floor as he shifted, clearing his throat. "So… hospital food still tastes like cardboard."
He chuckled softly at his own joke. I didn't.
He tried again, tapping the peeled skin of an apple into a tray. "You still hate cafeteria apples?"
I gave him nothing.
He scratched his neck again, shorter this time, more impatient.
He didn't ask how I'd been.
He didn't need to.
I looked like hell.
And I think part of him knew that asking would only insult the truth written all over my face.
So he stayed safe. Neutral. Pacing around the wreckage, not daring to touch anything broken.
Until I finally spoke.
"Just ask me already," I said, voice hoarse. "Stop dancing around it."
He froze mid-peel.
Then, he put the apple and knife down, stood, and walked over to me. Not fast. Just steady. Like he was finally ready to stop pretending this was normal.
He crouched in front of me. His voice dropped low, firm, honest.
"Why did you want to end your life?"
His eyes met mine, unflinching.
I opened my mouth----
But no words came.
Only silence.
Heavy. Crippling.
I dropped my gaze again. Couldn't look him in the eyes anymore.
He didn't push.
He didn't sigh or shift or scold.
He just stayed there. Present. Quiet.
Letting me carry the silence without judgment.
Letting it speak for me.