Nublar's Seventh

"If it were you out there, would Hazel give up on you?"

Yasmina sat alone in the quiet ruins of Main Street, the cold stone beneath her doing nothing to ground her trembling body. The others were asleep, curled up in makeshift bedding, lost in exhausted dreams. But Yasmina couldn't close her eyes—not when her mind replayed that moment over and over again. The moment her fingers had slipped from Hazel's hand. The moment she had watched her best friend disappear into the trees, swallowed by the chaos.

She hadn't even realized she was clutching Hazel's satchel to her chest until now. Her knuckles were white from gripping the worn leather strap. Her last piece of her. Slowly, she let out a shaky breath and ran her fingers over the bag, tracing every crease, every stitch, as if memorizing it by touch alone.

Then, almost without thinking, she undid the buckle.

Inside, she found little pieces of Hazel—things that should have still belonged to her. A photograph, slightly crumpled, showing Hazel with two adults—her parents, Yasmina assumed. Gadgets tucked away in the pockets: a mini flashlight, a pocket knife, little survival tools that Hazel had kept close. Then, something that made her chest tighten—her charm bracelet.

Yasmina ran her thumb over the tiny charms, heart hammering. Hazel never took this off. Why was it in here? Had she taken it off before—before everything? Or had she lost it? The thought that Hazel might have been looking for it, that she had died without it— no. No, Hazel couldn't be dead.

Her breathing hitched. She swallowed hard and forced herself to keep looking.

That was when she found the book.

It was small, bound in leather, a buckle keeping it shut. A journal? No—something else. Yasmina hesitated, guilt gnawing at her. She shouldn't invade Hazel's privacy. Even if she was gone, it didn't feel right.

But... she was gone.

And this was all she had left.

With trembling hands, she unfastened the buckle.

The pages were covered in Hazel's writing, some words scratched out, rewritten, underlined. Not journal entries. Poems and songs.

Yasmina swallowed past the lump in her throat, flipping through them, her vision blurring with unshed tears. Some were short, fragmented thoughts. Others were longer, flowing, filled with raw emotion. She felt like she was touching something sacred. Something Hazel had never intended anyone to see.

Page after page, filled with Hazel's handwriting. Some neat, others rushed, ink smudged where she had gone over words again and again. Yasmina didn't read most of them—somehow, it felt too personal. But then she flipped to the last written page.

Her stomach dropped.

A poem. One that ended in a deep, jagged line slashed across the page. Hazel had been writing this the morning that started this.

And as Yasmina read, her heart broke.

I never believed in safe havens,

never trusted quiet hands to catch me.

The world was too sharp, too unkind—

and I had learned to run before I could fall.

Then you—steady, unexpected—

wrapped me in warmth before I even knew I was cold.

Held me together when I didn't realize I was breaking.