POV: Violet
The city was too loud, even at night.
I sat on the edge of my bed, the clock glowing red at 3:17 a.m., and every sound seemed magnified—the hum of the fridge, the occasional car rushing by outside, the faint buzz of a streetlight struggling to stay alive.
But none of it drowned out the other noise—the memory.
That boy. Those eyes. That voice.
Run, little firefly. Run.
I pressed my palms against my temples, as if I could squeeze the image out. But the harder I tried to dismiss it, the sharper it became. A flicker of pine trees. The echo of footsteps on stone. My hand in someone else’s—warm, desperate.
I’d buried that memory years ago, dismissed it as something my frightened child-mind had invented after the k********g. A fairy tale I’d whispered to myself in the dark.
Bu
