Can’t think.
Thinking is the enemy out here.
A grenade arcs through the air—slow-motion in the smoky haze.
I spot it too late.
The blast slams into me like a sledgehammer, ripping the ground apart, flinging me backward like a rag doll.
I hit the dirt hard.
Hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs.
Hard enough to make the world spin and shrink all at once.
I try to push up, but my arms won’t cooperate.
The sky overhead is a dirty smear, the green suns bleeding into each other.
Somewhere in the distance, boots crunch closer.
Shouts. Orders.
They think they got me.
Maybe they did.
My vision tunnels, dark around the edges.
Pain throbs through me in thick, heavy waves.
Then I see her.
Kelli.
Not here. Not real.
But so clear it guts me.
Her hair tangled across the pillow, soft and defiant. Those fierce, stubborn eyes cutting straight through me. The way she looked that night—scared but brave, fragile but burning.
The memory slams into me harder than the grenade.
I reach out without meaning to. My hand lifts off the wrecked ground, reaching for something that isn’t there.
"Kelli," I choke out.
It’s not a prayer.
It’s not even a word.
It’s a lifeline.
The world narrows to that one thought.
Her.
And the crushing, sickening certainty that I left her in hell to rot while I bled for nothing out here.
