There were ropes hanging from clouds again. You could see them on nights when the moon wouldn’t bend — thin and silver, trembling proud, swaying quiet, whispering loud. People said they were tricks of the eyes, but Eli knew better. He’d seen them rise. He’d felt their hum beneath his skin, a voice that whispered, “Come within.” Each rope sang like a promise, low: It’s quieter up here... let go. No one will ask you to breathe anymore. He’d been tired for so long — the kind of tired sleep ignores. Every morning felt like war. His ribs a cage, his chest a shore where waves of hurt kept crashing more. He learned to laugh so no one saw the drowning under all he wore. And one night, he went to find them. The field was wet with fog and dew, the air a bruise, the sky half-blue. His breath came ragged, soft, and slow — each step a question he didn’t know. He thought of all the messages left on “read,” the friends who asked, “You okay?” and how he’d said “yeah” instead. He reached up — the rope was cold. Almost kind. Like something that would finally hold. Then — a voice behind him broke like a branch. “Don’t.” Mara. The girl from his class. The one who drew stars on her hands, and kept her eyes low when teachers asked. She didn’t move closer, just stood in the gray. “I lost my brother to one of those,” she said, “same rope... same sky... same day.” “I thought I saw him in the clouds once more — but it was lightning. Nothing more.” Her words didn’t save him. They didn’t erase the pain. They just cracked the dark enough for air to slip in again. He dropped to his knees. The rope slipped free. He cried until his lungs burned raw, and she cried too — because grief knows no law. She didn’t say it’ll be okay, she didn’t lie. She just sat