The rooftop stood high above the restless city, where wind moved freer, colder, less forgiving, carrying with it the distant echoes of a world that did not care who broke beneath its weight.
Sarah stood near the edge, her silhouette sharp against the dim glow of scattered lights below, her arms wrapped around herself as though she could hold together something already slipping apart.
Her breath came uneven, catching between her ribs, her shoulders rising and falling in a rhythm that betrayed the storm she could no longer silence.
Strands of her hair whipped across her face, clinging briefly to damp skin before being torn away again by the wind that seemed to mock her stillness.
"…Damn it," she whispered, the words trembling as they left her lips, more fragile than the anger she tried to force into them.
Her fingers dug into her arms, nails pressing harder, as though pain might anchor her where certainty had failed.
Behind her, the night shifted.
Not loudly.
Not suddenly.
