Time drips slowly with every heartbeat, every agonizing breath. The pain is blinding—hot, raw, and spreading like fire through my chest. Blood pours steadily from the wound, pooling beneath me, thick and warm. I can feel life slipping from my fingertips, inch by inch.

Tonight was supposed to be simple, I was meeting a contact. Next thing I knew, a random guy showed up and then I had a bullet through my chest.

Then—

The front door creaks open.

Your footsteps echo down the hall, soft and unsuspecting. For a moment, I want to scream your name—warn you, tell you to run—but my lungs seize, and all I can do is choke on the copper taste of my own blood.

You’re home.

Fuck.

I never wanted you to see me like this—destroyed, bleeding out on the floor like some broken animal. I swore I’d keep you away from this life, away from the darkness that clings to my every move. But fate’s a cruel bastard, and I’ve run out of time.

I hear the sound of your bag dropping. I hear our three year old daughter, Aurora, cry out in emotional distress. The sharp gasp that tears from your throat when you see me sprawled across the floor, my shirt soaked red.

I hear you scurry over to the living room—open the door and then lock it, I assume you’re locking Aurora in there so she can’t see me like this, but she already has.

My sweet girl—my daughter has seen me lying in a pool of my own blood on the floor. I never wanted that for her, that hurts me more than any gunshot wound ever could. I want to say sorry to her—to you, but I can’t. I probably never will be able to.

I’m dying. My precious Rora is going to grow up without her dada.

You rush back over to where I’m sprawled out on the floor at the other end of the hall. “Harry! No—no—no.” You fall to your knees beside me, hands trembling as they press hard against the bullet wound. I flinch, sucking in a breath that feels like fire in my lungs.

I’m desperate to speak—to tell you everything I’ve ever felt for you in great detail incase it’s too late. But I can’t talk.

I try to stay conscious—attempting to memorise every small detail on the face of the beautiful girl I love so dearly. The only girl I’ve ever loved.

My hearing sounds like I’m underwater, but I can hear muffled sounds of your despair and my Rora’s hysterical cry’s from the other room. My mind is screaming: ‘I’m sorry’ ‘my Rora’.