(AFKW) PROLOGUE II

Elsewhere—before the crash, before the body drew breath again—another soul drifted in silence.

Shemira had thought it would end differently. She had spoken the words, the final simple, short command, and the veil of death had thinned. At last, the separation would end. At last, she would see them again: Niru, her beloved husband, and Daimon, her precious son. The ones she had mourned for with every hollow breath in this uncaring world. The ones she needed more than anything.

Finally, she would find the happiness she never thought she’d feel again.

But something went wrong.

Instead of reunion, she was torn away. The cold light that beckoned her forward collapsed into darkness, and the pull of something vast and foreign dragged her into a warmth not her own. She resisted of course, struggling and clawing at the void around her, fighting to hold onto that light, to the hope she had been promised. Her cries rang out, but they were smothered in silence, unheard even by herself.

And then, an impact.

Shemira collided with a desperate soul already half-faded, clinging to life by threads too thin to hold. She merged with it, ephemeral pain lancing through both as memories collided: a husband named Danny, a daughter named Taylor, and the crushing regret of leaving them behind so soon.

The grief was familiar in a way. Far, far too familiar. 

The dying woman desperately wanted to stay, to not abandon her family. Shemira desperately wanted to be reunited with her family, to never be alone again. Two needs, two desperations, twined together until they could no longer be separated.

When the body gasped its next breath, it was no longer just Annette Rose Hebert. Nor was it only Shemira, widow of the renowned healer, Niru. It was something in between, something that wore a human face, but was unspeakably horrid and forsaken in its heart.

She opened her eyes to the hospital ceiling, Danny’s tear-streaked face leaning over her, and Taylor’s tiny hand clutching hers.

“My love?” Danny whispered, voice cracking.

She—Shemira, Annette, both and neither—smiled through lips that felt strange and familiar all at once. And she spoke the only words that fit, the only ones that bridged the gulf between lives.

“I’m here.”

And in a sense, she was.

But deep inside, the part that had once been Shemira knew the truth: the reunion she had longed for had been denied. The grief had not lifted, so the ache remained. And though she would love this child, though she would play the role this world demanded of her, a voice whispered bitterly from her heart that this life—this family—would never truly be hers.

It was a second chance stolen, not given. And one she didn't want.