There was no sound at first for it was too dreaded for the both of them.
No fire. No rain. No shouts.
Only silence—vast, ending—
Crushing.
The world ended twice, for her—
She thought it was death.
The butterfly with broken wings, the woman who once soared above, now crumbling like ash.
The pain that had wrapped around her chest was gone, replaced with weightless nothing. No more was the cold whispers. No more eyes judging her every step. No more silence from the one she had once loved.
And for him...
He thought it was the end, in broken glass and steel.
A devoted man of success—falling into shame and demise, success turned into a curse and a curse turned into destruction.
A man staggered out, blood staining his brow. His eyes were a storm undone—no rage, no fury, only emptiness that mirrored her own. He dropped to his knees near the wreck, barely able to lift his head.
Her breath had already left her, somewhere between the rooftop and the broken car that caught her fall.
Her body ached, her veins were fire, but her eyes remained open—staring blankly, unwilling to weep. For years she had been denied her tears, until even grief had abandoned her.
Beside her, another sound—an engine's last gasp, a car crumpling into ruin.
Smoke. Sparks. A door swinging open with trembling force.
And then their gazes met.
Not as lovers.
Not as enemies.
Not even as strangers.
Just as two souls caught in the same abyss.
Her lips parted. No words came. She wanted to ask why—why he looked as lost as she felt, why he carried the same weight in his eyes. But her voice had already broken somewhere above the rooftop.
He, too, said nothing. Perhaps because there was nothing left to say. The world had already taken everything from him.
Yet when her bloodied hand twitched, reaching toward something—anything—he moved.
Slowly.
Weakly. As though even lifting his arm cost him the last of his strength. And still, he reached.
Their fingers brushed. Then held.
A broken butterfly and a ruined storm, clinging to each other in the seconds between heartbeats.
Neither knew the other's name. Neither knew the stories that carved such emptiness into their eyes. And yet, in that single, fragile touch, something passed between them—an unspoken recognition:
You're like me.
Her vision blurred. His chest rose in shuddering gasps. The world tilted, cracked, and the void crept in.
And as their last breaths intertwined, the silence of death did not feel so lonely.
When the darkness closed, it was not despair that swallowed them.
It was… release.