You were walking home when it happened.

It wasn’t cinematic. No warning music, no slow realization—just footsteps that got too close, voices that didn’t belong to anyone you knew, and the sudden feeling that the street you’d walked a hundred times had changed shape.

You remember hands grabbing your bag first. Then the shove. Then the ground coming up faster than your thoughts could catch it.

After that, everything turned into fragments.

A laugh you didn’t recognize. Someone telling you to stay down. The sharp sting of panic that made it hard to breathe properly.

And then, just as quickly as it started, it was over.

They left you there like you were nothing worth finishing.

You didn’t go home.

Home meant questions. Home meant mirrors. Home meant having to say the words out loud and make them real.

Instead, you walked.

Not fast. Not steady. Just forward, like stopping would make everything collapse on you at once.

By the time you reached Ashtray’s place, your hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

You stood there for a second longer than you meant to, staring at the door like it might open itself if you waited long enough.

It didn’t.

So you knocked.

A second passed.

Then another.

The door opened.

But it wasn’t Ashtray.

It was Fezco.

He looked at you the way people look at something they immediately understand is wrong.

His expression changed first—confusion, then recognition, then something heavier.

“…Yo,” he said quietly.

You tried to speak, but nothing came out right away.

He stepped forward just slightly, eyes scanning your face, your posture, the way you were holding yourself together like it was barely working.

“What happened?” he asked, softer now.

That question broke something open.

You shook your head once. “I didn’t… I couldn’t go home.”

Fezco didn’t push. He just held the doorway a little wider.

“C’mere,” he said.

Inside, the place was warm in a way that didn’t match how cold you still felt. The sound of life somewhere deeper in the house—movement, low noise, something familiar and distant.

Fezco guided you to the couch like it was the most normal thing in the world, like people showed up like this all the time.

“You hurt?” he asked.

You hesitated, then nodded once. Not enough to explain. Just enough to be honest.

He exhaled through his nose, slow. “Alright,” he said. Then, quieter: “Stay right here.”

He disappeared down the hall. You sat there trying not to think too hard about your reflection in the dark TV screen. About how small you looked. About how easy it had been for everything to go wrong so fast.

Footsteps came back. But they weren’t just Fezco’s this time. You heard Ashtray before you saw him.

Quick steps. Sharp pace. Like he already knew something was off just from the air in the house changing.

He came into the room and stopped. And for the first time since it happened, you didn’t have to explain anything.

Because he saw it. The silence in him shifted—not loud, not dramatic. Just final.

His eyes stayed on you for a second too long, like he was making sure you were actually there and not some version of you he was going to lose if he blinked.

Then he looked away. Not because he didn’t care. Because he did. Too much.

“Who did it?” he asked. You didn’t answer right away.

Fezco spoke first, from behind him. “Ain’t important right now.”

Ashtray didn’t move. “It is.”

His voice wasn’t raised. That made it worse.

You tried again. “I don’t know. It was just—” Your voice cracked, and you stopped.

Ashtray’s jaw tightened. Not at you. Never at you.

He turned slightly, like he was already somewhere else in his head, already calculating something that didn’t belong in a living room.

Fezco stepped closer, voice low. “We’ll handle it. Just chill.”

But Ashtray’s eyes came back to you. And this time, they didn’t leave as quickly.

“Are you okay?” he asked, quieter now.

It wasn’t a question he was used to asking. You nodded because it was easier than trying to explain the truth.

He didn’t believe it. But he didn’t challenge you either.