The end I love you Jan forever.

It was a night like any other, where the world lay cloaked in the twilight haze of a summer evening. Jan and I had spent the day wandering through the woods, our laughter mingling with the rustle of leaves and the chirping of crickets. We were not just friends; we were tethered souls, bound by the shared secrets of our lives. Those woods were our sanctuary, a place where we could escape the turmoil of reality and simply be. But as dusk settled in, we decided to climb the ridge overlooking the valley, eager to catch the last breath of daylight. We sat on the edge, our feet dangling over the precipice, eating the sandwiches my mother had packed. The golden hour painted the sky in hues of orange and purple, and for a moment, everything felt perfect. It wasn't until the sky darkened, and we started our descent, that the unexpected struck. A sudden crack echoed through the trees, and a heart-stopping moment ensued. A thick branch, weakened by the previous day's storm, broke free from the weight of its own age and came crashing down. In that split second, time elongated. I turned to shout a warning to Jan, but it was too late. The world erupted into chaos. I watched, paralyzed, as the branch struck her with a brutal finality. A sickening thud reverberated in the air, and my friend crumpled to the ground. I rushed to her, but before I reached her side, I felt it—a force, raw and primal, unfurling within me, everything around me consuming in a flash of blinding light. The world spiraled as I was thrown back, tumbling to the forest floor, gasping and disoriented. The impact left me wracked with pain, but it was the silence that followed which crushed me deepest. I turned back to Jan, now lifeless and broken, as the forest felt like a living weight pressing down on me. In that moment of despair, I experienced something profound. It felt as if the barriers between life and death had blurred, and I glimpsed a realm beyond the physical—a place bathed in ethereal light. I sensed her spirit as if she were just out of reach, flickering like a candle in the wind. It was both horrifying and beautiful, the agony of loss mingled with an inexplicable sense of connection. The minutes stretched into what felt like eternity. I lay there, cradled by the earth, the pain radiating from my body and yet somehow merging with the ache in my heart. I could hear the distant chirps of crickets and feel the cold breath of night creeping in, but my mind was lost in the other world, a shimmering arena of memories, laughter, and fleeting moments. There, I remembered our secret dreams and whispered promises, the warmth of her presence that had once filled the space between us. And even as I knelt in anguish, I felt the space where she had been, the light she had brought into my life, the love that stitched us together—woven now into the very fabric of my being. When the paramedics finally arrived, it felt like an intrusion on our sacred moment. They couldn’t see what I had seen, the connection that defied the laws of nature. Yet as they pronounced her dead, something forged in that boundless realm lingered within me, transforming my pain into a testament of our bond. With each passing day, even as I moved through life bearing this wound, I carried her essence with me. The glimpses I had experienced continued to color my existence, a reminder that love transcends even the fiercest of tragedies. JAN was gone, but the whispers of our shared life would echo in the silence of my heart forever.