He’s hurt. He’salive—at least in that picture—but hurt.
The compad slips from my fingers and clatters to the ground. I snatch it back up like it’s a lifeline.
“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no.”
Then instinct kicks in.
Ben.
I shove the compad into my pocket and start running.
The city blurs around me.
Glimner’s streets glow in rain-slick reflections, every light a smear of red and blue. My breath fogs the air; my boots slap puddles. People turn to stare, but I don’t slow. I don’t care. The wind tastes like rust and panic.
Every block feels longer than the last. Every second that passes feels stolen.
I reach the building and take the stairs two at a time. By the time I reach my floor, I’m shaking so hard I can barely punch the access code. The panel buzzes red—once, twice—before it accepts.
The door slides open.
I know something’s wrong before I even cross the threshold.
The air’s different. Still, but charged. The kind of silence that only comes when the world has just ended and doesn’t know it yet.
“Ben?” I call. My voice cracks. “Baby, where are you?”
No answer.
The living room looks the same at first glance—couch, blanket, his half-finished art project on the table. Then I see it.
His backpack.
Lying on the floor by the door, one strap twisted, the zipper half-open. The tiny patch he sewed himself—the one that saysSpace Explorers Club—is torn halfway off.
And the door.
The door isopen.
My heart stops.
I run to the threshold, shove it wide, peer down the hall—nothing. Empty air and the echo of my own breathing.
“Ben!”
It rips out of me. The word tears my throat raw. “Ben!”
Nothing answers.
The sound that leaves me next isn’t a word. It’s a sound I didn’t know I could make—a kind of broken animal noise that fills the corridor and comes back in distorted echoes.
The world narrows to that single point: the empty doorway, the rain blowing in from the stairwell, and the small backpack lying abandoned like an accusation.
I stumble backward into the apartment, fumble for my compad with shaking hands. The screen blurs under the smear of tears I didn’t notice falling.
I call his name again, softer now, like maybe if I whisper it the universe will take pity.
No answer.
