BLOOD AND ASHES

THE FALL THAT WASN’T

The night air was cold and sharp, like a blade pressed against Tobias Sheldon’s throat. He stood frozen on the hospital roof, his heart pounding louder than the wind that whipped his coat.

“Elena…” His voice cracked as he stretched out his trembling hand. “Please, step down. Don’t do this. Look at me, Lena—look at me!”

She was swaying on the ledge, the thin hospital gown clinging to her frail frame, her hair scattering wildly in the storm of night.

Her eyes were glassy, pupils wide, unfocused. It was as if she wasn’t there anymore, as if someone had reached inside and stolen the woman he loved.

Tobias took a cautious step forward. His throat tightened. “Think of Ethan. He’s downstairs waiting to see you. He said he’ll walk faster for you today… You don’t want to break his promise, do you?”

For a heartbeat, he thought she might respond. Her lips trembled, a sound forming—weak, breathless. But then her knees buckled. Her arms wavered, stretching slightly forward, like a puppet pulled by invisible strings.

Tobias’s gut twisted. “No, no, stay with me! Stay with me, Lena!”

Every word was a plea, every step he took was deliberate, slow, careful. He tried to bridge the distance without spooking her. “Remember the garden? Remember how you laughed when I killed the tomato vines with too much water? You said I was hopeless, but you loved me anyway. You’re my life, Lena. Don’t let anything take this from us!”

Her head tilted, confusion flashing in her dull eyes. For one aching second, Tobias thought he had reached her.

Then the door behind him burst open.

Boots thundered on the rooftop concrete. “Step back!” Security guards stormed in, their shouts cutting through the fragile silence.

Tobias whirled, panic tearing through him. “No! Don’t—”

But it was too late.

Elena startled at the noise. Her body swayed forward, her arms spread like wings for flight. Her eyes, empty and broken, fixed on Tobias one last time.

“ELENA!”

Her body toppled over the edge.

The scream ripped out of Tobias’s throat as the world slowed to a nightmare crawl. Apples from the bag he had dropped rolled across the roof, bumping against the concrete like mocking echoes of life, while the love of his world plummeted into the dark.

He staggered to the ledge. His stomach dropped as he saw her hit the street below.

The crash was sickening. Her body struck the pavement eighty feet down. Blood spread like a terrible flower beneath her fragile frame. Gasps and screams erupted from pedestrians; cars honked, brakes screeched, people scattered.

Tobias clung to the railing, his vision shattering. “No… God, no!” His voice cracked raw against the night.

And then — headlights.

Through his blurred, tear-stung eyes, he saw a van screech to a halt by Elena’s body. Two masked men jumped out. Swift, clinical. They lifted her limp, blood-streaked form into the back of the vehicle.

Tobias blinked hard, not trusting what he was seeing. What are they doing? She’s… she’s dead! Why would they—

The van’s tires screamed, rubber burning against asphalt. In seconds it was gone, swallowed by the city streets.

Tobias staggered back from the ledge, heart hammering. His mind spun. She fell. I saw her fall. I saw her bleed. But now—she’s gone?

He bolted for the stairwell. His legs nearly gave way beneath him as he thundered down the steps, each footfall echoing his frantic heartbeat.

No, no, no. This can’t be happening. She can’t just vanish. Not like this.

The ground floor doors slammed open as Tobias burst onto the street. A crowd had already gathered, their voices were frantic. Doctors and nurses rushed past him, drawn by the screams. Security guards tried to hold back onlookers.

Tobias shoved through, desperation burning in his veins. “Where is she? Where’s my wife?!”

He reached the spot where Elena had struck the ground. His chest heaved as his eyes locked on the blood — dark, wet, undeniable.

But there was no body.

Nothing.

“Where is she?!” Tobias roared, his voice breaking. He grabbed a man by the shoulders. “You saw her! She fell right here! Where is she?”

The man, pale and shaking, stammered, “A van. It pulled up… they carried her away.”

Another voice chimed in, a woman clutching her child. “It all happened so fast. They… they just took her and drove off.”

Tobias stumbled back, his vision swimming. They didn’t just let her die. They took her. Why?

His foot hit something soft. He looked down.

There, amid the bloodstains, lay a scarf. White. Torn at the edge. Stitched with a small black crow.

His breath hitched. With trembling hands, he picked it up. The fabric was damp, sticky with Elena’s blood, but the crow emblem gleamed faintly under the streetlight.

“Elena…” His voice cracked as the scarf fluttered in the wind.

But before he could process it, rough hands grabbed his arms.

“Enough!” A guard shoved him hard. “What did you do to her?”

Tobias’s head snapped up, fury and disbelief colliding. “What? No! I didn’t—”

Another voice — sharp, accusing. A detective had arrived, notebook in hand, his eyes were cold. “Convenient, isn’t it? Wife goes missing, debts piling up, and now a staged fall? You expect us to believe this wasn’t your doing?”

Those debts weren’t for gambling or waste. Every single cash down to last penny had been borrowed for Elena’s cancer treatments — chemotherapy, surgeries, oxygen tanks.

Tobias had begged and signed his life away to keep her alive. But no one cared about that.

To the police, to the teachers he couldn’t pay, it looked like failure. To the world, Tobias was weak, incompetent, a man collapsing under his own mistakes.

“No!” Tobias shouted, thrashing against their grip. “She fell — you all saw! They took her! A van—”

But his words were drowned by the buzz of the crowd, by whispers of debt, scandal, madness.

The guards forced him to his knees, cuffs biting into his wrists. His chest heaved, his face pressed to the pavement still warm with Elena’s blood.

And there, inches from his face, lay the scarf.

The crow’s emblem stared back at him, silent, unblinking.

Tobias’s throat tightened. His vision blurred. In that moment, helplessness threatened to break him. But beneath the grief, beneath the humiliation, something darker stirred.

Rage.

They had taken her. Silenced her. And now they dared accuse him.

He clenched his fists against the cuffs until his knuckles bled.

In his heart, a vow was born.

“I’ll find you, Lena,” he whispered, voice hoarse but steady. “Dead or alive, I’ll find you. I will get to the root of this.”

The scarf fluttered once more in the night wind, a ghost of wings.

And in Tobias’s eyes, helplessness turned into fire.

The crowd’s whispers grow louder, suspicion thickening around him.

The detective’s voice cuts through the noise: “Take him in.”

Cuffs bite into Tobias’s wrists as the guards hauled him up from the bloodstained pavement.

His eyes fell once more to the scarf — the crow emblem glinting faintly in the streetlight, whispering of something he didn't yet understand.

Tobias’s chest heaved, his voice raw as he mutters to himself:

“Why her? Why take her? What… what does all this mean?”