The Bridge That Wasn’t There

The first scream comes at dawn.

Jonas jerks awake in his car, his heart slamming against his ribs. His fingers find the steering wheel before his eyes even focus. He’s parked on the edge of a bridge — or what should have been one. Now it’s nothing but an abrupt drop into fog, as if the world has been cleanly severed.

For a moment, he wonders if he’s dreaming.

Then he remembers: he ran.

From what? He can’t tell anymore. The last two days have blurred into one frantic blur of headlights and highway signs. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face — Mara’s, pale and still in the hospital bed. And then the monitors flatlining. And then the silence.

Jonas grips the steering wheel harder. “I had no choice,” he says to no one. But the fog doesn’t answer.

Then — movement.

A figure, just visible through the white.

He gets out, his breath forming ghosts in the cold air. A woman stands near the edge, holding a small suitcase. She’s barefoot. Her hair, silver and tangled, looks almost luminous in the mist.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Jonas says. His voice sounds too loud.

She turns, and her eyes — pale, almost translucent — meet his. “Neither should you.”

Something in her calmness makes him shiver.

“I didn’t know the bridge was gone,” he says.

“It’s not gone,” she murmurs. “It’s waiting.”

Jonas frowns. “Waiting for what?”

She points across the fog. “For those who think they have nowhere else to go.”

He follows her gaze but sees only emptiness. The drop below is endless. “You mean… people jump?”

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she studies him — the same way Mara used to when he lied about being “fine.” That soft, unbearable kindness.

“What’s your name?” he asks, trying to ground the moment.

“Lina,” she says. “And yours?”

“Jonas.”

She nods, as if she already knew.

They sit on the hood of his car. Fog curls around them, damp and heavy. Jonas tells her pieces of the truth: that he was supposed to pick Mara up from her therapy session, but he didn’t; that she called him seventeen times before she left on foot; that she was hit by a drunk driver half a mile from home.

He doesn’t tell Lina that he saw the missed calls and ignored them. He doesn’t tell her that the sound of her ringtone still makes him nauseous.

Lina listens quietly, her hands folded on her suitcase. Every so often she hums, low and tuneless, as if to fill the silence.

When he finishes, she asks softly, “Do you think you could’ve changed it?”

He flinches. “If I’d picked up the phone.”

She tilts her head. “Then what?”

He hesitates. “Maybe she’d still be alive.”

Lina smiles — a small, sorrowful curve. “We all tell ourselves that. The world turns one way, and we think a single choice might have stopped it.”

“You sound like you know something about that.”

“I used to wait here too,” she says.

He studies her face. There are faint scars along her wrists, faded almost to nothing. “What stopped you?”

“I realized the bridge doesn’t lead anywhere new,” she says. “Only back through what you ran from.”

Jonas looks at the fog again. “Maybe that’s what I need.”

Lina’s voice softens, almost pleading. “Jonas, what would Mara say if she saw you here?”

He laughs bitterly. “She’d tell me I’m being stupid.”

“Then listen to her.”

“I can’t.” His throat tightens. “She’s gone.”

Lina doesn’t reply. She only reaches into her suitcase and pulls out a small tin — tea, of all things. She pours two cups using a tiny camping stove, as if this moment were perfectly ordinary. The scent — jasmine and smoke — fills the air.

Jonas watches her, confused. “You’re really calm for someone sitting at the edge of nowhere.”

She shrugs. “Panic is for those still deciding.”

“Deciding what?”

“Whether to fall, or to stay.”

Hours pass. The fog never lifts.

At one point, Lina walks toward the broken edge. Jonas follows instinctively, afraid she might jump. But she only kneels and whispers something he can’t hear. Then she stands and looks back at him.

“You should drive home,” she says. “Someone’s waiting for you.”

“There’s no one left,” he says.

“You’re wrong.”

Jonas almost snaps — the words spilling out sharp, defensive. “You don’t know me.”

“I don’t have to,” she says gently. “You’re still talking, aren’t you? Still breathing.”

Then, quietly, she adds: “The dead don’t keep arguing with the living.”

He turns away, anger prickling under his skin. “You sound like my therapist.”

“I used to be one,” she says. “Before I stopped believing people could be saved.”

Something twists in his stomach. “And now?”

“Now I just keep watch.”

The phrase lodges in his head like a splinter. Keep watch.

Over what?

Over whom?

Before he can ask, Lina takes a step closer to the edge. The fog seems to pulse, almost alive. Jonas opens his mouth to shout — but she’s already gone.

Not fallen.

Gone.

The air ripples, and suddenly the bridge is whole again. The missing span gleams faintly in the mist, stretching across the void. On the far side, Lina stands, smiling — or maybe it’s Mara. He can’t tell anymore. The two faces blur, soft and shifting.

“Jonas,” she calls. Her voice is neither sad nor joyful. Just steady. “Come home.”

He wakes up in the driver’s seat, sunlight blinding through the windshield. The bridge behind him is perfectly intact — no gaps, no fog. Cars hum past as if nothing strange had ever happened.

His hands are shaking. There’s a faint smell of jasmine in the air.

He checks the passenger seat.

No suitcase.

No teacups.

No trace of anyone else.

But when he looks in the rearview mirror, he sees something scratched faintly into the glass, like it was written by a fingertip in condensation.

“Keep watch.”

He drives.

For the first time in weeks, he doesn’t turn the radio on. The silence feels different now — less like punishment, more like space. The road ahead gleams with morning light, and the guilt in his chest loosens, just a little.

When he passes a rest stop, he sees a woman sitting by the exit ramp, barefoot, holding a small suitcase.

He slows — then stops.

As she looks up, he realizes she’s not Lina. Younger, frightened, trembling. Maybe someone else who ran too far.

Jonas opens the passenger door. “You need a ride?” he asks.

She hesitates. “You’re not a killer or something, right?”

He manages a small smile. “No. I’m just… keeping watch.”

Epilogue

Weeks later, a maintenance crew inspects the bridge.

They find a section of railing etched with words — almost worn away by weather.

For those who turned back.

For those who couldn’t.

For those still deciding.

They leave it there.

And sometimes, on cold mornings, travelers swear they see a woman with silver hair standing in the fog — holding a small suitcase, waiting quietly by the edge.