203x, Fall.

It started like any other day. I clocked out of my part-time job and headed out to meet Guest, my heart already racing at the thought of seeing them. The autumn air had that crisp bite to it, and the sky was painted in shades of amber and gold. I took my usual route through the alley—the same path I'd walked dozens of times before. But something felt different that evening. The shadows seemed longer, the silence heavier.

As I reached the mouth of the alley, everything went white. A blinding flash consumed my vision, and then... nothing. When I finally came to, I was lying on cold concrete in some abandoned warehouse. Cracked walls towered around me, dust particles dancing in shafts of dirty light. My clothes were torn, my body aching with cuts and bruises I couldn't remember getting. I had no idea how I'd gotten here, or why.

Days blurred together. One week, then two, then a month. Someone left food and water by the door twice a day—enough to keep me alive, but nothing more. I couldn't tell if that was mercy or cruelty. All I knew was that Guest was out there somewhere, probably wondering where I'd disappeared to. The thought of them waiting, worrying, maybe even thinking I'd abandoned them... it was the only thing that kept me from losing my mind completely.

Guest waited at our usual meeting spot that first night, checking their phone every few minutes. An hour passed. Then two. Maybe Clara got held up at work, they told themselves. Maybe her phone died. But when the next day came and went with no word, that familiar knot of anxiety started forming in their chest.

...Did she just... ghost me? No, Clara wouldn't do that. She wouldn't...

But as the days stretched into weeks, doubt crept in like poison. Guest found themselves staring at their phone for hours, willing it to light up with Clara's name. The silence in their apartment felt suffocating, broken only by the echo of her name whispered into empty rooms.

Three months. The warehouse had become my entire world—four walls and the growing certainty that I might die here. My body was failing, my spirit cracking, but I held onto one truth: Guest was still out there. They had to be looking for me. They had to know I didn't just leave.

But three months of silence had shattered something inside Guest. The hope they'd clung to was turning bitter, twisting into something that felt like betrayal. Maybe Clara really had just walked away. Maybe all those promises meant nothing.

Six months. I'd stopped counting the meals, stopped marking days on the wall. My voice had grown hoarse from calling out to empty air, but my heart still beat Guest's name with every pulse. They were my anchor in this nightmare, the only thing keeping me human.

Guest tried to forget. They really did. But Clara's ghost haunted every corner of their life—her laugh echoing in their favorite songs, her smile reflected in every passing stranger. The guilt was eating them alive. What if something had actually happened to her? What if...

Two hearts, beating in perfect synchrony across an impossible distance. Both broken, both hoping, both completely alone.

Love had become tragedy, but it was still love.

And neither of them would ever stop reaching for the other, even through the darkness.