I did not know, that afternoon, that I was already losing her.
City 2 breathed under a blanket of monsoon mist, the air thick and unmoving, as though the sky itself was holding something back. Somewhere beneath that grey hush, Rimora carried a decision she had delayed for weeks. Lbow lingered around her with the quiet persistence of a man hoping patience might turn into love—gentle smiles, nervous offerings of flowers, a presence that never demanded yet never left. She saw his sincerity clearly, felt the kindness in it, but her heart had already anchored itself elsewhere. It was tied to my silence, my wounds, the shared weight of grief we never had to explain to each other.
Under the spreading arms of a banyan tree, she finally ended the uncertainty. Her voice did not tremble, nor did it wound. She told him the truth plainly—that she could not return what he felt, that her heart belonged to someone else, unshakably, irrevocably. She spoke my name. Lbow listened without interruption. His face drained of color, lips tightening as if holding back something that threatened to break him apart. He smiled, faint and fragile, a gesture meant to protect her from the damage already spreading inside him. He did not argue. He did not accuse. He simply stood there, absorbing the fracture in dignified silence.
That night, I was working.
The lamps in Lbow's estate gleamed under my hands as I polished them, brass reflecting a version of myself I barely recognized—bent, tired, hollow-eyed. The mansion was quiet in the way only wealth can afford to be. When Lbow approached, I sensed the weight in his steps before I saw his face. His eyes were red, not with anger, but with restraint stretched too thin.
He told me what Rimora had said.
For a moment, the world tilted. Relief surged through me first—sharp, unwanted, undeniable. Then came dread, crushing and immediate. I had convinced myself that stepping aside was the right thing, that if I removed myself from the equation, they would find comfort together and I would pay the price quietly. But the truth stood there now, stripped of excuses. She loved me.
I tried to speak. Loyalty strangled my voice. Friendship tightened around my throat like a noose. Love, standing so close, felt heavier than grief. I told myself I should refuse it. That wanting her made me selfish. That choosing her meant betraying the last bond I had left. The words that came out were weak, unfinished, dissolving before they reached meaning. Lbow listened without interruption, nodding slowly, as if already bracing himself against something inevitable.
The night pressed down harder after that.
When Rimora did not appear at the café, something inside me tightened. She was never careless with time. Never absent without reason. The lights burned without her, flickering like they sensed the imbalance. I left my duties without asking permission, my steps cutting through the narrow lanes faster than my thoughts could keep up. Lbow followed—reluctant, wounded, yet unable to stay behind.
The city looked ordinary. Too ordinary. Laughter spilled from taverns, shutters closed, life went on with cruel precision. But beneath it, there was a tension I could feel in my bones, like the ground waiting to crack. When I reached her door and knocked, the sound echoed too loudly. No answer. I knocked again, harder. Silence answered me back.
We forced the door open.
The room was untouched, frozen in the shape of her absence. Her scarf lay draped over the chair, books scattered mid-thought across the desk. A cup of tea had gone cold beside the window. A candle still burned, its flame unsteady, as though disturbed moments ago. I called her name until my voice broke, searching corners that refused to give her back. Lbow stood near the window, staring outward. The sky glowed faintly red, not with fire, not with lightning—something else. A pulse. A warning.
She hadn't left.
She had been taken.
My legs gave way. I dropped to the floor, clutching her scarf as if it were the last proof she had existed. Tears came without permission, hot and furious. Fate had taken everything again. My father. My mother. Blue. And now her. Lbow reached for me, hands trembling, but I shoved him away, grief turning sharp and ugly in my chest. I shouted words I didn't fully mean, pain spilling faster than reason. Even as I pushed him back, I knew—he understood. He had lost her too. In a different way. The emptiness was shared, even if the wounds were not the same.
By morning, whispers had already begun to spread. Some said the authorities had taken her. Others claimed she had known too much, spoken too freely about what was coming. Her old visions, once dismissed as hallucinations, now sounded dangerously close to prophecy. I replayed every word she had ever said, every warning she had tried to give us. Suspicion replaced despair, hard and burning. This was not random. This was not coincidence.
The city did not pause for her disappearance. It never did. Elites celebrated, the poor labored, and Rimora became just another name erased quietly. But to me, she was the last thread holding me upright. I searched alleyways, questioned strangers, followed rumors until exhaustion blurred my sight. Everywhere I went, the answer was the same—nothing. As if she had been deleted.
Under the pale light of dawn, Lbow finally spoke. His voice was low, fractured, but steady. He said he would help me. Not because he still hoped—but because friendship, even wounded, still mattered. Even if it meant watching me fight for the girl he had loved.
Something stitched itself back together between us in that silence.
As the city woke, unaware of the storm forming beyond its walls, I stood clutching Rimora's scarf, my hands steady now. I had reached the edge of collapse—or resolve. I chose resolve.
I whispered to the empty air, to the echo she had left behind:
I will find you. No matter what comes.
And somewhere beyond the clouds, the first wave of catastrophe stirred.