Episode 73 — A Breath Between Worlds
The warehouse was too quiet.
Aria knelt beside Raian's blood-slick body, her fingers trembling as they fought to keep pressure on the wound. His breath came shallow, thin gasps that barely moved his chest. Sweat glistened on his brow, and his skin had lost all warmth.
"Don't do this," she whispered, voice catching. "You can't just leave me here."
His eyelids fluttered, pupils unfocused. She couldn't tell if he heard her.
Saira returned, arms full of dusty supplies — bandages, a battered first-aid kit, a cracked bottle of antiseptic. "This is all I could find," she said, breathless. "There's morphine. Not much."
Aria ripped the supplies from her hands. "Boil water. Now."
Saira didn't argue. She disappeared again into the side room, where rusted sinks and a forgotten gas burner sat dormant. Aria didn't watch her go — her whole world had narrowed to the man bleeding beneath her.
"You promised," she said softly, wiping blood from Raian's lips. "You said you'd stay. That we'd get through this."
His mouth twitched into a shadow of a smile. "Liar," he murmured.
"You always were," she whispered back, choking on a sob.
She tore his shirt further, revealing the full extent of the damage. The bullet had torn through his lower abdomen — too close to arteries, too deep for comfort. She'd seen wounds like this in the hospital. Half of them didn't survive. And those were with operating rooms and teams.
Raian didn't even have clean sheets.
Her fingers moved automatically — disinfecting, stitching, wrapping. Her tears blurred her vision, but she didn't stop. Not even when her hands cramped. Not even when his blood soaked her to the elbows.
Time lost meaning.
Finally, when the bleeding slowed and his breathing evened into something steadier, Aria sank back, shaking.
"He's stable," she whispered, more to herself than to anyone else.
Saira hovered nearby, holding a cup of steaming water. "You saved him."
"No." Aria shook her head. "He's not out of danger. If infection sets in—"
"We'll keep him alive," Saira said, voice firmer than before. "Whatever it takes."
Aria looked up, eyes hard. "You don't get to fail him again."
"I won't," Saira whispered.
Raian stirred on the cot, groaning low. Aria leaned in. "I'm here."
His eyes opened, hazy and fevered. "Cold…"
She wrapped a blanket over him, rubbing his arms gently. "We'll get you warm."
He didn't respond, but his breathing calmed.
Outside, the wind howled across the river. Inside, the old walls seemed to sigh with the weight of everything they held — blood, guilt, love that refused to die.
Aria sat at his side all night, fingers laced with his. She didn't sleep. She didn't move. She only watched him breathe.
By morning, his fever had begun.
She felt it under her palm — the heat burning through his skin. His lips cracked, dry. He mumbled in his sleep, flinching at invisible demons.
Saira brought what little food she'd scavenged, but Aria barely touched it.
"We need antibiotics," she said. "Real ones."
Saira nodded grimly. "There's a pharmacy in the lower district. Abandoned, mostly. I can try."
"It's risky."
"I owe you both more than my life." She grabbed her coat. "If I'm not back by nightfall—"
"You will be," Aria said. "You have to be."
Saira left, vanishing into the fog like a ghost chasing penance.
Alone again, Aria sponged Raian's skin with cool water, her hands moving gently across fevered skin. His dreams were violent — he flinched and muttered names she didn't recognize. Sometimes he called for her. Sometimes he whispered her name like a prayer. Sometimes like a curse.
She never let go of his hand.
When his fever spiked, she lay beside him, wrapping her arms around his shaking body to share her warmth.
"You don't get to leave," she whispered into his hair. "You're not finished yet. I haven't even told you… I forgive you."
He didn't answer.
The sun slipped down the horizon.
Still, no sign of Saira.
Raian's body was burning up.
Aria pressed her forehead to his chest, listening to his faint heartbeat. "You asked me once why I stayed," she murmured. "It wasn't because I was stupid. Or naive."
Her voice cracked.
"It was because no matter how twisted your world was… you made me feel like I mattered."
The wind rattled the warehouse walls.
"I loved you before I even understood why," she whispered. "And I love you now. Even if you never wake up to hear it."
The door burst open.
Saira stumbled in, soaked from rain, clutching a plastic bag tight to her chest. "I got them!" she cried, breathless. "Penicillin. Ibuprofen. Clean syringes."
Aria leapt to her feet. "Give them here!"
She worked quickly, administering the shot, crushing pills into water, coaxing Raian to swallow even half of it.
The fever didn't break right away.
But something in his breathing shifted.
It deepened. Steadied.
His fingers curled slowly around hers.
Aria didn't speak.
She only cried — quietly, with her forehead pressed to his chest — until the sun rose again.
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Teaser for Episode 74:
Raian opens his eyes to a new dawn — but with recovery comes consequences, and a promise Aria makes may lead to the ultimate betrayal.