"No, no, no no.....this can't be true."
Ash squeezed those words out of his mouth, his voice strained and uneven, as if each word had to force its way past the tightness in his throat.
His breathing was hard and labored, rising and falling in an irregular rhythm that he could no longer control, and every breath felt shallow, as though the air itself had grown too heavy for his lungs.
All sorts of memories seemed to pass in front of his eyes, not in a clear sequence but in overlapping flashes. It was as if he was reliving his whole life once more. Moments from his previous life intertwined with scenes from his current one, faces appearing and disappearing without order.
The memories with Nancy surfaced repeatedly, small interactions that once felt simple now carrying unbearable weight under doubt.
At that moment he felt how a dying person just before his death would be feeling, when the mind desperately tries to hold on to meaning while everything slips away.
