Dragonfruit.

I wake in a haze, gasping for air. The taste of blood and fruit lingers on my tongue, sharp and unfamiliar. My chest heaves. I blink, the world swirling.

She’s standing there.

Impossible. She shouldn’t be here.

Her hospital gown flutters in the wind, as clean and crisp as it was the day she died. Her eyes—once dulled by pain—are alive again, piercing, clear.

“Eat it,” she says, her voice soft but commanding.

Her hands are cupped, cradling something: a dragon fruit. Its skin glows faintly, pulsing like a heartbeat.

I stumble back, my breath catching. “You’re dead.”

Her expression tightens, sorrow flickering across her features. “And so are you.”

The words hit me like a tidal wave. Memories flood in, jagged and relentless. The beeping—the endless beeping. My body folding in on itself, failing. The whispered panic in the room. The words I dreaded most: "We’re losing her."

I remember the moment my body gave in, too weak to fight, my mind slipping into nothingness.

But now, here she is. Alive, impossibly so, holding that fruit glowing with an otherworldly light.

The air is heavy, humming with energy. Heat radiates from the fruit, its surface almost alive. I can feel it—a pull, a rhythm, a pulse that syncs with my own.

“Eat it,” she repeats, her voice breaking through my daze.

Guilt crashes over me. The weight of her loss. She died, and I didn’t. I lived. “You should take it,” I say, my voice trembling. “You deserve—”

“No.” Her sharp tone cuts me off. Her gaze burns into mine. “It’s not for me. It’s for you.”

The ground beneath my feet trembles, cracks spidering outward. The sky behind her shifts, splitting open like an old wound. A shadow looms in the distance, vast and cold, its presence suffocating. It grows, creeping closer.

Something is coming.

“There’s no time,” she says, her voice trembling. “Do it now!”

The fruit pulses again. I reach for it, the skin warm and alive under my fingertips. I lift it to my mouth but hesitate. “What is it?”

Her voice drops to a whisper, trembling. “Not what. Who.” She takes a step back, sadness pooling in her eyes. “It’s a door. A way back.”

The shadow moves closer, its mass slithering like a living storm. It engulfs the horizon.

I bite into the fruit, its juice spilling onto my tongue. Sweetness erupts, then burns—like fire, like loss, like all the things I left undone. Regret and relief collide within me.

The world bends. Reality cracks, the ground splitting open beneath my feet. Her voice echoes through the chaos as the light consumes me.

“I saved you a bite.”

I wake, gasping, my body heavy and cold. Machines beep wildly. A nurse’s voice rings out, panicked.

“She’s back.”

The door bursts open as a doctor and another nurse rush in, their motions busy like the wind living me in a dizzy spell and too dumbfounded to speak. I feel the pain of needles in my arm, a belt around my arm and lights.

I blink at the ceiling. In my hand, a seed pulses.

But on my wrist—her bracelet.