There was noise.
Not the kind you recognize.
A hum of existences that weren't there for you.
Children screaming. Adults laughing.
And you, floating in that public pool, like a stranger inside a memory that no longer belongs to you.
The walls were damp. The air too clear.
You weren't really awake, but everything felt too real to be a dream.
Then she appeared.
You hadn't seen her in years.
And yet she was there, as if nothing had changed, as if time had stopped in the folds of your memory.
She saw you. And she smiled.
That smile… the one you loved so much.
You walked toward her, hesitant.
She didn't move. She waited for you.
You talked.
No grand phrases. No apologies. No why.
Just… words.
Simple. Clear. Sincere.
She asked how you'd been. You lied without meaning to.
You said you were doing fine.
She laughed softly. And told you she figured as much.
Then you walked, aimlessly, around the pool.
Each step felt like release.
Each silence, a relief.
She was there. Really there.
And in that dream, you didn't need to search, or to run anymore.
You didn't think about the past.
You didn't hope for the future.
You were simply present.
For the first time since… you don't even know.
And then, the sky changed texture.
You felt it before you saw it.
A strange pressure in the air.
Like the absence of something you couldn't quite name.
When you looked up, you saw it.
A black dot.
Tiny.
Up there.
And the more you stared, the more it grew.
You wanted to say something to her.
She was listening, but her gaze was no longer on you.
It was turned toward that hole. That celestial void.
And she wasn't afraid.
You were.
Not of dying. Not of disappearing.
But of losing that moment.
The black hole spread like a truth we've always known, but never dared to admit.
And you understood.
That was the punishment.
To have tasted what was never meant to be touched.
To have glimpsed what your heart had been silently yearning for, without ever admitting it.
And the sky, in its divine cruelty, came to take it all back.
Not in a scream.
Not in war.
But in a collapse, slow, silent, complete.
You reached out your hand.
But she didn't take it.
She looked at you with tenderness.
And she whispered something.
You didn't hear it.
But you understood what it meant.
"It's time."
And then, the sky swallowed you.