The Ink of Our Souls|ONC2025

"She's crying." The words floated through the static in my mind, distant yet insistent, pulling me toward consciousness.

The murmuring voices in the background stirred something deep within me, their indistinct hum threading through my consciousness like whispers from a forgotten dream. They wove through the haze, blurring the boundaries between past and present.

Then, one voice cut through.

A tremor of recognition flickered at the edges of my mind, fragile and fleeting. I reached for it, but it danced just beyond my grasp. It wasn't a name yet, just a feeling, an old warmth mingled with yearning rising from somewhere long buried.

"Mother?"

The word scraped against my throat, emerging as a hoarse rasp; but the moment it left my lips, the truth solidified.

Someone gasped. I tried to open my eyelids, but they refused, heavy and uncooperative.

"Ari, it's Mom. I'm right here," the voice replied, trembling with emotion. A warm hand covered mine and squeezed gently.

Ari? No one had called me that in decades. No one here even knew that name. It belonged to another time, another life before everything changed.

"Ari, can you hear me?" My mother's voice cracked with urgency.

I forced my eyelids apart just enough to glimpse the sterile white walls around me through my long eyelashes. The room was both foreign and familiar. Faces hovered at the edges of my vision, faces I had cried over many years ago.

Was I dreaming? It had been so long since I had dreamed of this life.

"Arianna," another voice spoke, this one fainter but still recognizable. It took me a moment to place it, and when I did, a sharp ache twisted in my chest.

A different voice had taken its place in my heart long ago.

Husband.

He had been gone now for almost a decade, and my heart grieved his loss daily. What all the evil in the world had failed to take from me, sickness had.

"She's crying again," someone whispered.

"Paul, she began crying when you spoke. Maybe she recognized you. Say something else," my mother beseeched.

Reality finally crashed onto my addled brain. My eyes flew open, and there he was.

Paul.

Paul stood before me, still devastatingly handsome, but his blonde hair had grown longer and was slightly less groomed. His piercing blue eyes still held the same depth I once knew so well, but now a quiet shadow lingered beneath them, a weight he hadn't borne before.

I hated that I noticed.

"Get out," I croaked, my voice raw.

Pain flickered across his face, tightening the sharp angles of his jawline, the faint stubble only adding to the effortless allure that had once been my undoing. Once, I had memorized every line of his face, believing it belonged to the man who would stand beside me forever. But that was before his betrayal shattered me so completely that I had no choice but to leave.

And yet, without that heartbreak, without my reckless escape from the truth. I never would have found the life I built beyond him. A life that had been rich and full of love, one I would have chosen a thousand times over.

"RiRi," he whispered, reaching for my hand. "I'm so sorry."

The old nickname I hadn't heard in decades sent me a fresh wave of anger. His voice still held the same softness and familiarity, but it no longer had the power to tether me to what it once possessed.