A Few Hours After the Accident
The sky had grown heavy.
Clouds pressed low over the construction site, dimming the light and muting the colours.
Yellow tape now marked the perimeter.
Police vehicles stood nearby, their lights flashing silently against dust-covered concrete.
Two women stood just beyond the barrier.
Mizuki’s mother was on the left.
Her coat was buttoned unevenly, one sleeve still folded inward, as if she had dressed in a hurry.
She hadn’t spoken since arriving — not during the drive, not when they were asked to wait, not even when her name was called.
Beside her stood another woman, holding the hand of a young girl.
The boy’s mother kept her grip tight, her fingers trembling despite the effort to stay composed.
The girl beside her, around ten years old, stared ahead in silence.
Her eyes were red, but no tears fell.
She didn’t look away.
No one rushed them.
No one raised their voice.
They were guided slowly, gently, toward the covered area near the site.
Mizuki’s mother stopped.
Her breath caught.
She didn’t scream.
She didn’t collapse.
She reached out slightly, as if expecting someone to take her hand — the way he always did.
There was nothing there.
Her knees gave way, and she lowered herself to the ground without realizing it.
Her palms pressed against the concrete, fingers digging in, as though the ground itself might answer her.
“He said he’d be home by evening,” she whispered.
No one corrected her.
Boy’s mother took a single step forward, then another — her movements stiff, uncertain.
Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
She covered her mouth with both hands.
Young girl tightened her grip.
“Mama…?” she asked quietly.
Her mother didn’t answer.
The site remained still.
Dust settled slowly.
A siren faded somewhere in the distance.
And in that quiet space, two families understood — without needing words —
That the morning they had started with
would never return.
Mizuki broke free from the hands holding her.
She ran.
Her steps were uneven, too fast for her small legs, shoes slipping slightly against the concrete as she crossed the short distance.
Someone called her name, but she didn’t stop.
She reached her mother and clutched at her coat.
“Mama.”
Her mother looked down slowly, as if it took effort to focus.
Mizuki tugged again, harder this time.
“Mama… where is Papa?”
The question was simple.
Too simple for the place they were standing in.
Her mother didn’t answer.
She knelt instead, her hands shaking as they rested on Mizuki’s shoulders.
She searched her daughter’s face — the dirt-smudged cheeks, the wide eyes still waiting for reassurance.
“Mama?” Mizuki asked again, her voice smaller now.
“Papa said he’d come back.”
Her mother’s lips parted.
No sound came out.
She pulled Mizuki into her arms, holding her tightly — too tightly — as if letting go might make something else disappear.
Mizuki struggled slightly.
“I want Papa,” she said, her voice breaking for the first time.
“Where is he?”
Her mother pressed her forehead against Mizuki’s hair.
“I’m here,” she whispered, though it wasn’t an answer.
“I’m here.”
Mizuki waited.
She listened.
She waited for her father’s voice to rise above the silence, for footsteps to approach, for someone to say this was all a mistake.
Nothing happened.
Slowly, confusion gave way to something heavier.
Mizuki stopped asking.
And in that moment — held in her mother’s arms, surrounded by a quiet she didn’t yet understand —
A six-year-old girl learned that some questions
do not have answers.
After that day, my mother never smiled the same way again.
She still smiled — sometimes.
But it never reached her eyes.
Not when she spoke.
Not when she looked at me.
When I was younger, I thought she was just tired.
I thought adults were like that — busy, quiet, worn down by time.
I didn’t understand.
I couldn’t.
Years passed.
I grew taller.
Older.
Quieter.
And somewhere along the way, I began to realize something I never should have understood so early.
No one would have died that day
if I hadn’t been there.
That thought didn’t come all at once.
It arrived slowly — in pieces.
In silence.
In the way my mother stopped touching my hair.
In the way people looked at me without saying my name.
I never said it out loud.
But it stayed with me.
Ten years later, I stood at the top of a tall building.
The wind pulled at my long black hair, just like it had back then.
Dark strands slipped loose from where they were tied low behind me, brushing against my fair cheek before being carried away again.
The city stretched below me — distant, indifferent, alive.
I stood still, shoulders straight, posture practiced.
At sixteen, I had grown into a slender girl with calm gray eyes that rarely revealed what I felt.
My white school blouse and dark skirt shifted lightly in the wind, the pale fabric standing out against the dark sky.
I didn’t feel fragile standing here.
I felt contained — like someone who had learned how not to fall apart.
I stood still, shoulders straight, posture practiced.
My clothes shifted lightly in the wind, the fabric pale against the dark sky, unmoving except where the air touched it.
I didn’t feel fragile standing here.
I felt contained — like someone who had learned how not to fall apart.
I looked down, not because I wanted to fall…
…but because I didn’t know where else to look.
Guilt is a strange thing.
It doesn’t scream.
It doesn’t accuse.
It eats.
Slowly.
Quietly.
From the inside.
I had lived ten years carrying something that didn’t belong to a child.
Ten years replaying a morning that was supposed to be ordinary.
Ten years wondering what would have happened if I had stayed still.
If I hadn’t asked.
If I hadn’t followed.
My reflection flickered faintly against the glass behind me — calm eyes, steady, almost detached.
Not empty.
Not emotional.
Just holding everything in place.
My mother’s face appeared in my thoughts — not crying, not angry.
Just empty.
That emptiness was worse.
I closed my eyes.
The wind felt colder up here, slipping past my collar, tugging at the loose edges of my sleeves.
I didn’t shiver.
I rarely did anymore.
And as the city continued beneath me, unaware of my existence, I asked myself the same question I had been avoiding for years:
If my life began with someone else’s end…
…what meaning does it have now?
The guilt didn’t answer.
It never did.
It just stayed.
I opened my eyes and looked down again.
The ground felt impossibly far away — not frightening, just distant.
Like something I wasn’t meant to touch anymore.
I can’t carry this guilt any longer.
The thought didn’t come with tears.
It came with a strange calm.
My hands were steady at my sides.
My breathing slow.
Even now, standing at the edge, I wasn’t shaking.
I had tried everything.
I tried being quiet.
I tried being good.
I tried disappearing into routines, into years, into silence.
None of it brought my mother’s smile back.
Nothing filled the space that had been left behind.
People never said it out loud — they didn’t need to.
I saw it in their eyes, in the pauses that stretched too long, in the way conversations stopped when I entered a room.
Even if I could change everything…
Even if I could undo the past…
If I saved them —
If I saved my father —
My mother would smile again.
Not the quiet kind.
The real one.
And so would the others.
That thought hurt more than guilt ever had.
I took a slow step forward.
The edge of the building blurred beneath my feet.
Wind surged upward, sharp and sudden, tugging at my coat, my balance, my breath.
My hair lifted violently now, no longer gentle, but I didn’t step back.
Then the pressure came.
The air thickened so abruptly it felt as though the world had clenched its fist around me.
My chest tightened.
My thoughts slowed.
A presence pressed down from everywhere at once.
As if something had noticed me.
Author’s Thought-
Thank you so much for reading Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of Beyond Space and Time: I Was Not Allowed to End.
These chapters introduce Mizuki, her guilt, and the tragedy that changed her life forever.
I truly appreciate everyone who has taken the time to read my story and support my journey as a writer.
If you’d like to see Mizuki’s character illustration, you can view it here:
🔗 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vAFaMRXLFfWqpHQwXBSnmVB0SlI7LiGw/view?usp=sharing
I hope you enjoy the story and continue following Mizuki’s journey.
Your reads, comments, and support mean a lot to me.
— Sahil
Author’s Thought- Thank you so much for reading Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of Beyond Space and Time: I Was Not Allowed to End.
These chapters introduce Mizuki, her guilt, and the tragedy that changed her life forever.
I truly appreciate everyone who has taken the time to read my story and support my journey as a writer.
If you’d like to see Mizuki’s character illustration, you can view it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vAFaMRXLFfWqpHQwXBSnmVB0SlI7LiGw/view?usp=sharing I hope you enjoy the story and continue following Mizuki’s journey.
Your reads, comments, and support mean a lot to me.
— Sahil