He didn’t.
His mouth crashed into mine. His hands locked around my wrists. Panic surged, but I was trapped in molasses. I turned my face, crying harder, trying to shove him off with limbs that didn’t belong to me.
“Even the Reaper threw you away,” he sneered. “Because you’re nothing.”
“Let me go!” I screamed, every ounce of strength poured into it.
A voice sliced through the thick air. “Guys—stop. What are you doing?”
Valeria stirred, groggy, eyes glassy and unfocused. She was too high—too slow, still trapped somewhere between sleep and static. “Knock it off. Come back here,” she mumbled, not fully registering what she was looking at, not fully understanding what was happening in front of her.
Ruslan froze.
That second was all I needed.
I slipped past him and ran.
Outside, the rain hit like knives.
Sheets of rain crashed down, ice-cold and punishing. My skin was soaked, my breath came in gasps, my feet raw against the pavement as I fled blindly into the dark.
I didn’t know where I was going.
The drug blurred everything. Maksym’s voice. Ruslan’s laughter. His hands. His words. It all spiraled into a surreal mess. The pain twisted until it was unbearable. Like I was split in two—one part screaming, the other too broken to care.
My mind began to fracture, thoughts bleeding into each other until nothing stayed whole. I slowed, hands shaking, talking under my breath like I was trying to reason with myself.
Maksym doesn’t love me.
No—that wasn’t right. He did. I felt it. I knew it.
Or did I?
My chest tightened as the doubt seeped in, thick and sticky.He said he’d always be there for me.The memory flickered, unstable. Did it actually happen, or was it something my mind filled in afterward?
My breath came out in broken sobs as I staggered forward, pressing a hand to my head like I could keep my thoughts fromspilling out. This couldn’t be real. None of this made sense. My body felt wrong, my memories unreliable, my heart screaming things my mind couldn’t confirm
“This is a nightmare,” I whispered to no one, my voice shaking. “This has to be a nightmare.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as I ran, begging silently for it to end—for someone to shake me awake, for the world to snap back into place.Please,I thought, panic rising.Please let me wake up.
And then I saw the bridge.
The Parkovy Pedestrian Bridge sliced through the storm like an artery. Below, the Dnipro roared, devouring city lights with open jaws.
I reached the railing like I was moving through a dream, my hands finding it before my mind caught up.
Rain plastered my hair to my face, my clothes to my body, everything heavy and uncomfortable—but it all felt distant, like it was happening to someone else.
I looked down at the river, watched it thrash and roar beneath me, black and violent and alive. Its sound swallowed everything else—my thoughts, my doubts, my name.
The crying faded into shallow, hiccupping breaths. Then even that stopped. My chest felt vacant, like something essential had been scooped out. The world flickered, pulsed—then froze.
The drug hummed softly through my veins, telling me this was all a nightmare. That nightmares end when you let go.
The river waited below, silent and endless, promising an end to all of it.
And for the first time that night, letting go didn’t feel frightening. It felt like relief.
