It was a gray, rainy day. Winter was finally ending, the temperature slowly climbing, but the promised spring didn’t look particularly scenic. The girl sighed, watching the dreary world through the car window. Why had her parents insisted on visiting that aunt? The one who didn’t even like tchem, always unpleasant, acting as if she knew everything better, and never had anything sweet in the house. She was like that truck driving alongside them—always rushing, indifferent, convinced of her own superiority. And when things didn’t go her way, she’d explode. Just like one of those tires…

  Darkness, the girl decided, was better than tumbling inside a car rammed off the road by a speeding truck. Everything hurt. Everything. And the noise was unbearable — maybe the truck still plowing through other cars, She tried to retreat into the dark, but this time, it rejected her. Her mother was screaming. even though everything else had gone eerily quiet. Her father begged her to open her eyes and crawl out. Telling her to be brave.

  She obeyed. The first thing she saw was the upside-down seats and her parents’ limp arms dangling toward the roof. Her mother kept shouting, telling her to unbuckle and crawl out before the car exploded. An old man tried to calm her, saying movies lied about cars blowing up. He shouldn’t have been there…

  …her mother answered him…

  …her mother shouldn’t be here…

  …her parents were dead.

  She was dreaming. She’d seen this before.

  Moonlight drowned the stars. Not a single cloud marred the river’s mirrored surface. The girl stared into it, uneasy. That reflection seethed with madness.

  Two figures stood by a riverside bench. The first was tall—but the second towered a full head higher, radiating raw power. The taller woman’s coat couldn’t hide the muscles beneath her skin, yet she lacked the other’s mist-cloaked majesty. The air hummed with tension. Tonight, a decision would be made.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The girl opened her eyes to blinding white. A calm voice spoke. Ceiling. Lights. Machines. A dozen people bent over her. "Only the nurse is alive," she thought, locking onto the woman’s face.

  “Can you hear me, sweetheart?” The nurse’s gentleness felt like a lie.

  The girl couldn’t speak.

  “It’s all right. Your aunt is coming.”

  Liar. Nothing was fine. Her parents were dead. Her only family left was the aunt she hated. The little girl wasn’t stupid. She’d seen that all in a movie. She’d also heard the ghosts whispering over her bed.

  Tears spilled over. So much for bravery. She was just a child. This wasn’t supposed to happen yet. She should be throwing tantrums over lost toys, not lost parents. What now? How could she go on without them? The nurse patted her arm.

  “Are you in pain? I’ll get the doctor. Don’t cry.”

  As the woman left, the room filled with ghosts. The girl counted faces through tears. She’d never seen so many together. Why were they here? The air thickened, suffocating. Then — all the dead turned toward the door. They fled. Only her parents remained, pale but determined. The hospital shuddered, lights flickered and died. Screams echoed. The girl hid under the covers. Whatever was coming, she didn’t want to see it.

  Time crawled. The door opened. A strange light flooded in— the same light she’d seen once before. The Path had opened. Her parents crossed over. It didn’t comfort her. They’d left her alone. A voice inside whispered this was right, but logic couldn’t stop her hysteria. The blanket was yanked away. Light returned. Silence fell. A man in a white coat leaned over her. Young, but his eyes were ancien. Her heart stopped. The doctor smiled faintly, pulled her into an embrace, and stroked her hair. Against all logic, her panic dissolved.

  “How do you feel?” he asked, handing her a tissue.

  “Better,” she muttered, wiping snot from her chin.

  His blue eyes held her. Time stopped. The world vanished.

  “I am strong enough,” she said, the words foreign on her tongue.

  He laughed—a wild, unburdened sound— then walked out through a door that hadn’t existed moments before. Fear and pain rushed back.

  “He wasn’t a doctor,” she whispered.