The fluorescent lights of the hospital hallway flickered, buzzing with a sound that seemed to mock the absolute silence in Leo's heart. He stood outside Room 402, clutching a small, plastic bag containing a few items: a silver locket, a worn-out paperback book of recipes and a half-empty bottle of herbal tea.
Everything else had been left behind. Everything else didn't matter.
"Leo?" A nurse approached, her face tight with practiced sympathy. "We've finished the paperwork. You can... you can go now."
"Thank you," Leo said. His voice sounded like dry leaves scraping against pavement. He didn't look at her. He couldn't. If he looked at her, he would see pity and he wasn't ready to be an object of pity just yet.
He turned and walked toward the exit. The hospital was a cavern of sterile air and the faint, lingering scent of antiseptic. For the last five years, this place had been his second home. He had spent his nights shifting between low-paying shifts at a local warehouse and the cramped, soot-stained kitchen of his tiny apartment, trying to recreate the flavors of the world for a woman whose appetite was being stolen by cancer.
"Leo, is this... is this really from Italy?" his mother had whispered just two nights ago, her fingers trembling as she held the fork.
"Authentic Ragu alla Bolognese, Mom," he had lied. It wasn't perfect—he couldn't afford the imported cheeses or the high-grade meat—but the look in her eyes, that fleeting spark of memory and joy, had been worth every hour of overtime he'd slaved through.
He walked out of the sliding glass doors, the cold night air biting at his face. It was 2:00 AM. The city was a blur of neon and rain-slicked concrete. Leo's head was pounding, a dull, rhythmic ache that matched the thrum of the city.
Fourteen. That was how old he was when his father had walked out. The man hadn't even looked back, just snatched his twin brother—the "golden child"—and vanished into a life of luxury with a woman who had never even learned to boil an egg. Leo had been left with a leaking roof, a mountain of debt and a mother who had been the only person in the world who ever saw his worth.
"I tried, Mom," he whispered to the empty street. "I tried to do everything for you but it wasn't enough to save you."
He started walking. He didn't really care where. His legs felt like lead and his mind was caught in a loop of memories: the smell of spices, the sound of his mother's labored breathing, the sting of the eviction notice he'd received yesterday. Without her, there was no reason to go back to that empty, cold apartment. There was no one to cook for. The kitchen was just a room now, a graveyard of half-used spices and broken dreams.
He reached the crosswalk. The signal was red but the street was empty. The rain began to fall in heavy, erratic sheets, blurring the streetlights into smearing streaks of orange and white.
If I had more time, he thought, his vision clouding with hot, frustrated tears. If I had money. If I wasn't just a low-life worker. If I had power, I could have paid for the best surgeons. I could have bought the best medicine. I could have made her happy until her very last day.
A massive, dual-trailer truck was barreling down the avenue. The driver, blinded by the downpour and perhaps distracted by the late hour, didn't see the lone figure standing in the middle of the road.
Leo didn't even hear the tires screech. He was staring at his hands, remembering the way he'd chopped onions for her when he was little, the way he'd learned to garnish plates just to make her smile. After all her dream was to be a master chef. He was so caught up in the past that he didn't notice the blinding wall of light until it was inches away.
I want to be strong, he thought, the realization hitting him with the force of a tidal wave. I don't want to be a pawn anymore. I don't want to be the one who watches things die. If there's another chance... I want to be able to protect my own.
The impact was absolute. There was no pain—only a sudden, violent cessation of sound, a flash of white and then the dark.