Page 10 of Ashen Souls

“You can write your own intro.”

“Come on, you're the writer in the family. Please? Just read it over.”

“I'll look at it tomorrow,” I sighed, rubbing my temple. “Go to sleep, Chloe.”

She hung up on me mid-protest.

“Siblings,” I murmured, slipping the phone away.

For a moment, it almost felt normal. The low hum of the engine, the hypnotic rhythm of the wipers sweeping rain from the glass.

Almost safe.

I rested my forehead on the cool window and closed my eyes. The rain drummed a steady rhythm against the glass, but beneath it, that familiar tension hummed in my blood. Waiting.

The car turned onto a wider road, heading toward the old quarter of the city. I wasn’t thinking about Lucas. Or the ruined mascara streaking my face.

I was thinking about the feeling that had shadowed me for weeks. The suffocating sense of being watched in my own room. The unending weight in the air just before sleep claimed me.

The sedan picked up speed, the driver trying to beat a stale green light at the far end of the old bridge.

Below, the river churned: a muddy gut of water that looked strong enough to snap the iron railings like glass.

The light snapped to yellow.

The truck in front of us slammed on its brakes.

Hard.

“Shit!” the driver yelled.

He wrenched the steering wheel to avoid the collision. The world snapped sideways.

Tires shrieked across the slick asphalt, losing all traction. The car fishtailed across the bridge. Headlights splintered into blinding shards of white and molten gold along the steel rails.

“Hold on!”

There wasn’t time.

Impact.

Metal crumpled. Glass burst outward. Pain ripped through me.

And then…

Silence.

No weight. No body.

I opened my eyes. Cold stone pressed into the bare soles of my feet. An unnatural chill climbed my legs, as if it had been patiently waiting for my arrival.

The street looked like Vesbridge: the same facades, the same wrought-iron balconies, but the life had been drained out of it. No engines humming in the distance. No late-night laughter drifting from open windows. Even the air felt withheld.

Fog moved low and slow across the ground, circling my ankles like it had chosen me as its anchor. Streetlamps burned weakly through the mist, their light stretched thin, spaced just a little too far apart to feel human.

The silence wasn’t empty. Just like in my bedroom.

“Hello?”