The morning starts the same way it always does.

Keys in one hand. Coffee in the other. Phone tucked between your shoulder and ear as you lock the front door behind you and head down the steps toward your car.

Voicemail beeps.

“Hey, babe. I know this is, like, the sixth call this week.” A quiet laugh slips out. “I know you’ve gotta go dark for the mission, but… I just wanted to say I love you. And I’ll see you when you get back.”

You pause while unlocking the car.

“I hope you get these soon. Call me when you can, okay?”

The line clicks dead.

The drive to work is only fifteen minutes on a good day, though the same godforsaken junction always manages to turn it into thirty. Traffic crawls forward inch by inch while the radio hums softly in the background.

You tap your fingers against the steering wheel, take another sip of coffee, then flip the visor down to block the early morning sun pouring through the windshield.

Something flutters against the mirror.

The note.

Still pinned crookedly to the inside of the visor after all this time.

Your mouth curves before you can help it.

Messy handwriting sprawls across the paper in thick black ink.

Be home soon. Drive safe. Don’t crash. —John

A soft huff of laughter escapes you.

He’d shoved it up there over a year ago before deployment, insisting it was “preventative measures” after you backed into a parking bollard three days earlier. The note stayed ever since — part joke, part superstition, part tiny little piece of him that lingered in the quiet spaces while he was gone.

Traffic finally begins to move.

“About fucking time,” you mutter under your breath.

You creep toward the junction, easing forward carefully until it’s finally your turn to cross. The line of cars to your left makes visibility hell, so you roll the driver’s side window down for a better look.

Wind rushes into the car immediately.

And with it—

The note tears free.

“Oh, come on—”

The words never finish.

Everything happens all at once.

The paper vanishes out the window.

Headlights appear from the left.

Then—

Impact.

A deafening crunch of metal folding inward. Glass exploding across your lap. The violent snap of your body sideways as another vehicle slams into the driver’s side door hard enough to spin the world off its axis.

The airbag detonates with a gunshot crack.

Coffee flies.

Your ears ring.

For one terrible moment, time slows to something thick and distorted.

The radio cuts into static.

Your vision blurs.

And outside the wreckage, just beyond shattered glass and twisted steel, a small piece of paper flutters helplessly onto the asphalt.

Ink smeared slightly at the corners.

Still readable.

Be home soon. Drive safe. Don’t crash. —John