The first thing I feel is weight.
Not pain, not light—just the terrible, crushing heaviness pressing me into the mattress, as if the whole bridge has followed me down and pinned me here.
Then sound filters in. A soft, insistent beeping. A hiss of air. Distant footsteps. Someone laughing too brightly in a hallway that smells like bleach and plastic.
Hospital, my brain supplies, sluggishly.
My lashes drag open. The world comes into focus in pieces: a ceiling tile with a brown water stain. Fluorescent light, humming. An IV bag with clear fluid, swaying minutely. A tube taped to the back of my hand, leading to a machine that blinks green.
I’m alive.
The realization doesn’t land. It hovers just outside the glass wall of shock, tapping once, politely.
Memory hits harder.
Rain blurring the windshield. Red brake lights stuttering ahead. The impossible sound of tearing metal. Screams that cut off mid-breath. The world folding, twisting—
The bridge.
I jolt, a raw sound scraping my throat as monitors spike into frantic alarm. Fire sears down my ribs; my body reminds me, sharply, that it is made of bone and bruises. Panic shreds what little air I have.
“Hey, hey—Arden, easy.”
A calm female voice from my left. I turn my head too fast; the room tilts, a carousel gone wrong.
A nurse appears in my blurred vision, dark curls tucked under a disposable cap, eyes kind but evaluating. She presses a button on the monitor to silence its shrill protest. Her badge reads LIA in cheerful letters that don’t match the purple crescents under her eyes.
“You’re okay,” Lia says. “You’re at St. Bartholomew’s. Do you remember your name?”
Arden. My name is Arden Vale. I nod. The movement makes my skull throb.
“Bridge,” I rasp. My voice sounds like it belongs to someone who’s swallowed sandpaper. “It—did—”
“Collapsed,” she finishes gently. “Yeah. Two days ago. You’ve been in and out. Concussion, cracked ribs, a hairline fracture in your collarbone. Lucky girl.”
Lucky.
The word clatters around my head with nowhere to land. I remember concrete cracking like ice, the car in front of me vanishing, the sense of falling sideways. I remember—
No. That’s where the memory frays. There’s a hole where terror should be.
“My—” The rest of the question won’t come. Family. Friends. Bodies.
“There’ll be time for all that.” Lia’s expression shifts, not unkind, but careful. “Right now we just need to make sure your brain’s not planning any surprises, okay?”
My eyes drag to the window. Beyond the partially drawn blind, gray light leaks in. Rain streaks the glass in uneven lines. For a moment it’s like I’m back on the bridge again, the world suspended on the edge of collapse.
“You have…visitors,” Lia says, hesitation catching on the word. “But no one comes in unless you say so.”
Visitors. The word feels foreign. My mom lives three states away. My dad—a blank that tastes like resentment—might as well be on another planet. Elena, my best friend, hates hospitals so much she once fainted in a waiting room.
“Who?” I manage.
Lia wets her lower lip. “Media, for one. The police. Hospital admin. Some…people who say they represent potential sponsors for your recovery fund.” Her tone makes it obvious what she thinks of that particular category. “There’s also a man who’s been here practically since they pulled you out. Very insistent, very rich, very not used to being told no.”
