The rain fell in unrelenting sheets, hissing against the smoking engines of the wrecked vehicles. The flashing red and blue lights of the overturned ambulance cut through the darkness, casting long, nightmarish shadows across the wet asphalt.

My spirit flickered violently, the edges of my vision d

There was no light. There was no sound.

My spiritual energy had shattered like glass, dissolving into an abyss of absolute, silent black. I was floating in a void of nothingness, detached from the rain, the mud, the horrific explosion, and the deafening crack of the gunshot.

*Julian.*

His name

Time did not exist in the darkness. There was only the steady, rhythmic hiss of a mechanical ventilator, the rhythmic chirping of cardiac monitors, and the pervasive, sterile scent of bleach and iodine.

But beneath the hospital sounds, there was a constant, unrelenting anchor: Julian.

I was trapp