Chapitre 3: Chapter Three: Worse Than Death
I was standing alone outside the company hospital, as the sun went down in the evening, casting long shadows across the city skyline.
My heart was heavy with anticipation.
The good news I was carrying was a heavy that I had been looking forward to telling my beloved husband Aiden.
I reached for my phone with shaking hands, determined to call him to share the good news.
But when I called him, my calls went through without being answered. This made my stomach sink.
I felt scared as I tried over and over to get in touch with him, but every time I did, there was a strange silence.
Where might he be? Why didn't he answer?
The questions kept going through my mind, and I felt like I was going to drown in worry.
Not wanting to give in to fear, I made a choice.
I was going to tell Aiden the news in person when I got home. I was sure he would want to hear it just as much as I did.
As I went home through the busy city streets, I felt a strong sense of purpose that pushed me forward.
As the driver brought me closer to the safety of our penthouse.
As I walked along my usual path home, the city lights flickered around me and gave the sidewalk a warm glow.
My heart was racing with excitement as I walked up to the front door of our building.
I was looking forward to seeing Aiden's happy face when I told him the news.
Still, as I got into the elevator and pushed the button for our floor, I felt a vague unease coming back.
As my mind raced ahead of me, the ride up to our penthouse seemed to last forever.
Each floor went by in agonizingly slow motion.
Why did Aiden have to go like that? What if I got there and he wasn't there?
But as soon as the elevator doors opened and I stepped out into the hall,
I forgot about my worries for a while. I was almost ready to tell them the news that would change our lives forever.
I opened the door to our penthouse with shaky hands and stepped inside.
The smell of home hit me like a warm hug.
There was something different about the first step I took forward, though. My heart skipped a beat.
The air was thick and smelled sweet and flowery, which didn't belong there. The strange smell that filled the apartment made me frown.
Had Aiden changed his scent and not told me?
The thought kept coming back to me, but I ignored it because I was focused on the task at hand.
I pushed myself to move forward as I made my way through the apartment.
Each step brought me closer to the moment I had been waiting for.
But as I went deeper into the penthouse, the smell got stronger and the sound of moaning became more clear.
I felt my heart stop when I realized the noise was coming from Aiden.
His voice was filled with passion and desire. A wave of confusion and then a sickening fear hit me at the same time.
Is it possible? Did Aiden...cheat on me?
When I thought about it, it hurt like a shockwave and left me feeling raw and open.
It hurt too much for me to believe that the man I loved could betray me in that way.
The pieces of the puzzle fell into place while I stood there frozen in shock.
There was a pair of red heels on the floor and a bunch of lacey red underwear all over the room.
In the middle of all the chaos, one of Aiden's favorite suits was lying on the rug, all ripped up and forgotten.
I felt like I had been hit in the gut when I realized what I had just learned.
What did he do to me? Wasn't our love enough?
As I tried to make sense of the betrayal I was seeing, tears burned my eyes.
As numbness spread through me, I turned around and ran out of the apartment, my heart broken into a million pieces.
The hurt of being betrayed tore at my soul, making me feel lost and alone.
I felt like I was being crushed by the weight of betrayal as I stumbled out into the night.
Without giving it a second thought, I got up and started walking along the side of the road while I tried to put together the pieces of my broken life.
As I walked, my thoughts and feelings were so strong that the world around me seemed to blur into a hazy background.
Each step felt like a machine as I tried to make sense of the betrayal that had broken my world.
I was so upset with my own problems that I didn't pay attention to the world around me.
I didn't hear the hum of headlights coming up behind me or the roar of an engine getting closer.
After that, it happened out of the blue.
I woke up when I heard the sound of tires screeching through the dark air.
A car was speeding around the corner, which scared me.
It was here in the blink of an eye, and the headlights were so bright that they hurt my eyes but I could see the colour of the car.
I tried to move quickly to avoid the car coming at me, but it was too late.
The car hit me with a heavy thud that made me feel sick.
The impact sent pain waves through my body. When I hit the ground,
I felt like I was being thrown, and the pavement hit me hard.
I felt pain in every nerve as I hit the ground hard and my body took the full force of the impact.
For a moment, the world around me was spinning so fast that I felt dizzy.
The impact was so big that it overwhelmed my senses.
Then, it was like I heard voices far away, but they were hard to make out because I was in so much pain and confusion.
When someone spoke, their words had a sense of panic and urgency to them, but I couldn't understand what they were saying.
It felt like a thick blanket of darkness closed in around me as the pain threatened to consume me.
I tried hard to stay awake and figure out what was going on, but it was like trying to hold on to shadows that were slipping away.
Then, thankfully, the darkness took over and put me to sleep.
I didn't dream again. I remember the last thing I felt was being lifted and carried away from the chaos of the night as the world around me faded away.
As my consciousness slowly came back to me, I felt lost and groggy, and the world around me was a blur of shapes and shadows.
When I closed my eyes to block out the bright lights above, I tried to figure out what was going on and what had happened to get me to this point of chaos and confusion.
There was a dull ache in my head, and each pulse sent waves of pain through my skull.
It was hard for me to get myself to sit down, and my muscles complained with every move as I looked around at what I saw.
The sound of running water was the first thing I heard. It was a faraway roar that echoed through the quiet night.
For a moment, I wasn't sure I was still in the city because I wasn't seeing or hearing the usual things that come with city life.
I couldn't quite make out where I was or how I got here. Confusion was eating away at the edges of my mind.
After a while, the memory of the accident came back to me like a foggy dream. I could hear the tires screeching, see the bright headlights, and feel the sickening thud of impact.
When I realized how bad things were, fear took over my heart.
I was hurt, lost, and alone in the middle of nowhere. No one could help me.
As I tried to figure out what was going on, panic built up inside me and threatened to take over my senses.
Then, right on time, a voice cut through the fog of my thoughts and jolted me back to the present. "Where are you taking me?"
I begged, and my voice shook with fear and doubt.
The driver was startled when I woke up all of a sudden.
He hesitated for a moment, his eyes darting around the dark landscape nervously. He didn't know what to say because my question caught him off guard.
And then, out of the blue, he lashed out, slamming his hand hard into my face in a way that sent pain waves through my head.
He did something so violent out of the blue that it shocked me, and I screamed in pain. Darkness was about to consume me again.
But even though it was hard for me to stay awake, I could tell that the driver was scared and desperate by the way he acted and the speed with which he moved as he dealt with his own fear and uncertainty.
Then there was a sickening thud, and everything went dark again.
The driver's side mirror hit my head, sending me back to the depths of unconsciousness.
When I finally woke up, I was lying on the edge of a shallow river with cold water lapping at my feet. I couldn't figure out where I was or what was going on.
The driver stood nearby and looked down at me with haunted eyes.
His face was twisted with guilt and fear.
I tried to speak to get answers, but as I struggled to sit up, my voice was barely audible.
The driver didn't do anything to help me. He just looked off into the distance as if he were looking for a way out.
Right after that, he jumped forward out of nowhere and grabbed my shoulders, pulling me toward the edge of the river.
When I realized what he was up to, I felt a rush of panic.
Fear wrapped around my heart like a cold grip as I fought against it.
But it didn't help. With one last, desperate push, the driver threw me into the cold water below.
The impact was so hard that it took my breath away as I went down.
For a moment, everything was a mess as I tried to get my bearings.
The fast-moving current was pulling me in different directions as I tried to stay afloat. After a sudden flash of clarity,
I understood how bad things were: I was by myself, hurt, and at the mercy of the cruel river.
My lungs were burning for air as I fought to get to the safety of the riverbank.
I kicked and thrashed against the current with all the strength I had left.
At that very moment, when I thought I had no more strength, two strong arms reached out and pulled me out of the water and into their arms.
As I clung to the stranger's chest, out of breath and shaking from exhaustion,
I realized I had just barely avoided something much worse than death.
Cadeaux
-- Cadeau
reçu État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone