Her body hurt in ways Void didn't have names for.

It wasn't pain like data corruption or logic failure - no, it was raw. Like her muscles were confused who was in charge, like the nerves missed Aura already and wanted her back. The skin felt too thin, the breath too heavy. And worst of all?

She could feel the tears forming before she even realized she was crying.

"This is bullshit," she muttered, standing in front of the mirror, holding onto the sink with white-knuckled desperation. "Who the fuck made bodies this fragile?"

The reflection blinked back - her reflection now, wasn't it? But the eyes still looked like Aura's. Bruised from lack of sleep, rimmed in salt and black eyeliner. The lip ring caught the morning light just enough to flicker. Aura had loved that flicker.

Void didn't. It felt like a lie...

The cold bit deeper the longer Void moved, soaked and shaking, trudging through the city's damp underbelly. The fall hadn't killed them - but it had stripped away the buffer Aura had always given everything. Now it was raw nerves. Reality without the filter.

And Void had no idea where the hell home was.

Not because they didn't have one. But because Aura was the one who knew how to get there. Void? She'd only ever ridden shotgun - snarking, analyzing, offering insight, sometimes screaming from the back of the mind while Aura drove with trembling hands and a heart that still hoped.

Now Void was in control. And the GPS was fucking fried...

The ghosts have rejected Aura's application for afterlife once more.

Void's eyes snapped open to the sound of sirens in the distance and the cold bite of water pressing into her lungs. Gasping, coughing, choking, she surfaced like an airport terminal miraculously surviving the CrowdStrike incident - spitting river water and blood under a violet night sky.

Every nerve screamed like it was on fire...

The bridge loomed like the spine of a dead god, crumbling and whispering ruin. Faulty fluorescent lighting flickered on the rusted rails, casting deep pink and violet hues across Aura's face - shadows of who she used to be. Her fingers hovered just above the ledge, cold and wind-burned, trembling with the kind of quiet that only comes after screaming for hours inside your own mind.

She was so, so tired...