MARIA“Maria…”The sound was faint at first, distant, as though someone were calling me from the other end of a tunnel. My body felt impossibly heavy, as if I was weighed down by something unseen, my chest fighting to rise. For a moment, I thought I was still tumbling, still caught inside the endless crash.Then the world returned in sharp, jagged pieces, pain stabbing through my skull, the bitter taste of blood on my tongue, and the suffocating stench of smoke mixed with twisted metal. My ears rang so loudly I could barely tell if it was my pulse or the chaos outside.“Maria!” The voice again, rougher this time, desperate. My eyelids resisted, but I forced them open slowly, the light piercing through the haze like knives.Kola’s face appeared above me.He leaned over me, his features drawn tight with pain and fear. Blood streamed down the side of his forehead, his once neat white shirt ripped, dirt clinging to it. He looked wrecked, broken even, but his eyes, sharp, unyielding, were
Last Updated : 2025-09-18 Read more