Petal's Pov

The words “Your mother isn’t dead” didn’t just echo, they detonated a impression.

They ripped through my chest like claws, tearing open a place I thought had finally scarred over. For a second, I didn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe. The room shrank, the walls leaning inward, the air thinning like the world was collapsing into one impossible sentence.

Alive.

My mother… alive?

No. No, that couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be. I had grieved for her, mourned her, built an ...