(Liam's POV)
My feet dragged against the cracked asphalt, moving with a cruel, heavy autonomy of their own. They knew the layout of these streets even as my mind screamed in a desperate, frantic effort to forget them. The humid night air grew colder, sticking to the sweat on my neck like a shroud. Before I could consciously comprehend where my aimless walking had led me, I froze. I was standing at the edge of the intersection—the exact blind spot where the world had fractured into jagged pieces six months ago.
And there, standing beneath the harsh, unblinking glare of the streetlamps, the floodgates of my mind violently tore open. The false walls of my reality didn't just crack; they crumbled into absolute ash. I finally, truly remembered.
Looking across the empty asphalt, I didn't see Aaron lying there. I saw the phantom shadow of myself. I watched the memory play out like a horrific film strip: my own broken body sprawled across the dark road, thick, crimson blood pooling from the side of my head, staining the gray concrete. I saw Linna. She was kneeling right there in the center of the street, her entire frame shaking violently as she hoisted my limp upper body into her lap. Her face was twisted into an agonizing, silent scream as she wept over my unmoving form. In the distance, the wailing, rhythmic screech of an approaching ambulance grew deafeningly loud, its flashing red and blue lights cutting the darkness into a chaotic, sickening blur.
There was no memory of Aaron lying in my arms. There was no memory of me desperately clutching his hand, pleading with him to stay with me, screaming at him to hold still and fight for his life. There was no Aaron whispering soft, final words into my ear, his weight clinging helplessly to my shoulder as he drifted away. There was no Liam standing paralyzed, soaked to the bone under a pouring, dramatic rain as the ambulance doors slammed shut and drove away with Aaron trapped inside.
There was no rain. There was no heroic hope. There was only a devastating emptiness, a stark, hollow void that swallowed the night whole. Aaron wasn't in that ambulance. Aaron hadn't been there at all. The memory shifted with agonizing, brutal clarity, forcing me to face the truth: it was *my* body being dragged into the back of that vehicle, *my* chest heaving erratically as I fought a losing battle for my own breath while Linna clutched her hands to her mouth in the background.
Aaron didn't exist in that street. He didn't exist anywhere anymore. He had been gone for two years, and my mind had completely rewritten a tragedy just to avoid the crushing weight of his permanent absence.
A sickening, visceral panic seized my chest, driving me away from the intersection. I turned and ran, my breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. I fled back to my apartment, throwing the door open so hard it slammed against the wall, bursting into the quiet space. I was manic, desperately searching for the remnants of the life I thought I had built with him over the last six months. I looked for the memories of taking care of Aaron after his supposed accident, the quiet moments of domestic healing. But as my eyes swept across the dark rooms, the beautiful, comforting illusions evaporated like mist, leaving behind only the raw, ugly truth of my own sorrow, physical difficulties, and crushing isolation in every single corner.
I looked at the worn living room couch. I had remembered sitting there right beside Aaron, gently helping him adjust his pillows, teasing him playfully as we wrestled over the TV remote, our shared laughter filling the room with an undeniable warmth. But the memory warped right before my eyes, twisting into a grotesque mirror. The illusion melted away to reveal the reality: it was just me, entirely alone, struggling with a broken, uncooperative body freshly discharged from the hospital. I saw the memory of myself having immense difficulty just reaching for the remote on the coffee table, my weak limbs giving out as I lost my balance, tumbling painfully onto the hard floor, and bruising myself in the quiet, empty apartment with no one there to help me up.
Terrified of my own home, I stumbled into the kitchen, my hands shaking so badly I had to grip the counter for support. I looked at the stove, searching for the memory of the day I had tried to cook for him. I remembered my undeniably terrible cooking skills, the way Aaron had laughed at my clumsiness, the playful teasing, the mock annoyance, the sheer, unadulterated joy and happiness that had radiated between us over a ruined meal.
The vision shattered. The phantom laughter died in my ears. All that was left was the memory of my own isolated frustration—me, standing over the stove with a bandaged arm and a trembling hand, struggling to flip a simple omelette. I saw myself burning my hand in the process because I couldn't properly reach the cooking oil with my restricted movement, crying silently from the physical pain and the emotional devastation of being utterly, completely helpless.
Driven by a manic, desperate need to find *something* real of him, I pushed into the bathroom. I looked at the porcelain tub where I thought I had helped Aaron take a bath. I remembered him looking so flustered and embarrassed, stubbornly asking me to scrub his back because his injuries prevented him from reaching it. I remembered teasing him relentlessly, laughing softly before gently helping him wash up.
But there was no Aaron in the tub. The memory twisted violently, forcing me to watch my own pathetic reality. It was just me, sitting on the edge of the cold porcelain, wincing in agony as I tried and failed to scrub my own back alone, unable to reach past the lingering pain of my own accident, completely abandoned by my own senses.
The soft, melodic echoes of Aaron's laughter that had bounced off every wall of this house for the past six months began to fade, decaying into a terrifying, hollow silence. It hadn't been real. None of it. It was all a horrific, beautiful creation of my own fractured mind—an elaborate playground of imagination born from a profound, deep-seated longing and a sorrow so massive my brain had to break to contain it. It was a guilt that would never be healed, a phantom that would stay with me forever because I was the one who had rejected him before he drowned.
The absolute, crushing weight of the truth stole the remaining strength from my knees. I slid down against the kitchen wall, sinking heavily into the dark corner between the counter and the refrigerator. I buried my face deeply between my knees, wrapping my arms tightly around my head as the reality of my broken mind finally set in.
I began to cry. It wasn't just sobbing; it was a loud, agonizing, primal wail of pure, unmitigated grief, echoing uselessly into the empty apartment. The sound was ragged and ugly, tearing from my throat as I rocked back and forth in the darkness. I was entirely, completely alone in a house built of ghosts.
Rocking in the shadows, my voice broke into a fractured, repeating whisper, a hundred times over into the void, begging a dead man for a forgiveness I would never receive:
"I'm sorry, Aaron... I'm so sorry. Please, I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry..."