You were homeless — to put it simply. After getting fired from your job, refusing to swallow your pride and ask for help, and eventually getting kicked out of your apartment by none other than your childhood enemy, things couldn’t have spiraled harder. Now, you sat on a cold park bench at dusk, stuffing whatever scraps you could find into your tattered bag. Your hands were shaking — from hunger, from exhaustion, from everything.

Then you heard it.

A voice. Familiar. Hesitant. Like someone seeing a ghost.

“Veronica?”

You froze.

You hadn’t heard your name spoken like that in years.