For a long time, I just stood there.
Outside the hospital.
Alone.
Cars rushed past.
People walked by.
The city kept moving as if nothing had happened.
As if there wasn't a six-year-old girl standing on the sidewalk with nowhere to go.
Nobody stopped.
Nobody asked if I was okay.
Nobody noticed me at all.
I looked back at the hospital doors.
Part of me wanted to run inside.
To find my mommy.
To sit beside her room again.
But I already knew they wouldn't let me.
The nurses had been kind.
The doctors had been kind.
That somehow made it worse.
Because kind people don't send children away unless they believe they have no choice.
So I turned around.
And started walking.
---
I didn't know where I was going.
I only knew I couldn't stay there.
Streetlights painted yellow circles on the pavement.
Shops were closing for the night.
People hurried past carrying bags and talking on phones.
Everything looked unfamiliar.
Too big.
Too loud.
Too fast.
My legs hurt.
My knees still stung from where I'd scraped them during the accident.
Twice I stumbled.
Twice I fell.
Twice I picked myself back up because there was nobody else to do it for me.
I kept walking.
One step.
Then another.
Then another.
The city stretched endlessly around me.
---
Somehow, I found my apartment building.
Even now, I don't know how.
Maybe my feet remembered what my mind couldn't.
Maybe children are better at finding home than adults realize.
Whatever the reason, I recognized the building the moment I saw it.
Relief rushed through me.
For the first time in days, something felt familiar.
I climbed the stairs.
Unlocked the door.
And stepped inside.
---
Everything looked exactly the same.
The small kitchen.
The old table.
The faded sofa.
The blanket my mommy always left folded neatly over the armrest.
Nothing had moved.
Nothing had changed.
Yet somehow everything felt different.
Because before, the apartment was quiet because my mommy hadn't come home yet.
Now it was quiet because I didn't know if she ever would.
The thought settled heavily inside my chest.
I hated it.
So I looked away.
---
That's when I saw them.
The cupcakes.
My birthday cupcakes.
Still sitting on the table.
Exactly where we'd left them.
I walked over slowly.
The frosting had hardened.
The decorations looked a little crooked now.
Forgotten.
Lonely.
Just like me.
I stared at them for a long time.
Remembering how excited I'd been.
Remembering how carefully I'd arranged them that morning.
Certain my birthday was going to be special.
Certain everything was going to be okay.
I reached out and touched one lightly.
Then quickly pulled my hand back.
Suddenly, I didn't want to look at them anymore.
---
Instead, I started cleaning.
My mommy liked things tidy.
So I washed the dishes.
Wiped the table.
Straightened the chairs.
Folded the blankets.
Anything I could think of.
Anything that kept my hands busy.
Because if my hands were busy, maybe my heart wouldn't hurt so much.
I worked slowly.
Carefully.
Trying to make everything perfect.
Maybe when she came home, she'd see how good I'd been.
Maybe she'd smile.
Maybe she'd call me her little fairy.
Maybe she'd hug me so tightly that everything scary would disappear.
I wanted that more than anything.
I needed it.
---
Halfway through folding a blanket, I stopped.
The realization hit me so suddenly that I nearly dropped it.
I didn't know how to get back to the hospital.
My breathing caught.
I knew what the building looked like.
But not where it was.
I didn't know the street name.
I didn't know the directions.
I didn't know how we'd gotten there.
I only knew that my mommy was somewhere in this enormous city.
Sleeping in a room full of machines.
And I had no way to reach her.
The distance between us suddenly felt endless.
Impossible.
Unfair.
I sat down on the floor.
The blanket still clutched tightly in my hands.
For the first time since the accident, panic began creeping in.
Real panic.
The kind that makes it hard to breathe.
Hard to think.
Hard to stay still.
Because what if she woke up and I wasn't there?
What if she asked for me?
What if she thought I'd left her?
Tears blurred my vision.
I wiped them away angrily.
I didn't want to cry.
I wanted to find her.
That was all that mattered.
Not food.
Not sleep.
Not anything else.
Just her.
I sat there holding the blanket.
And somewhere in this city, my mommy was sleeping.
And I had absolutely no idea how to find her.
That was the moment I started to panic.
The next morning, I woke up on the floor.
For a moment, I didn't remember where I was.
Then I saw the folded blanket in my arms.
The cupcakes on the table.
The empty apartment.
And everything came rushing back.
My mommy.
The hospital.
The red light.
The three days of waiting.
The loneliness.
I sat up quickly.
Today, I was going to find her.
I didn't know how.
I didn't know where to start.
But I couldn't stay in the apartment doing nothing.
Every minute I spent waiting felt like a minute farther away from her.
So I washed my face.
Put on my shoes.
And stepped outside.
---
The city looked completely different during the day.
Buses rumbled past.
Cars filled the streets.
People hurried to work carrying bags and coffee cups.
Everyone seemed to know exactly where they were going.
Everyone except me.
I stood on the sidewalk for a moment, thinking.
The hospital had been beside a large road.
I remembered that much.
So I decided to follow the biggest road I could find.
It wasn't a very good plan.
But it was the only one I had.
---
At first, I felt hopeful.
Hospitals were big buildings.
Surely I would recognize it if I saw it again.
So I walked.
Past stores opening for the day.
Past apartment buildings.
Past bus stops crowded with strangers.
Every time I saw a tall building, my heart jumped.
Every time it wasn't the hospital, disappointment followed.
Still, I kept moving.
Because stopping felt worse.
Stopping meant accepting that I didn't know where my mommy was.
And I wasn't ready to accept that.
---
Hours seemed to pass.
The sun climbed higher.
The streets grew busier.
My feet hurt.
My stomach growled.
But I barely noticed.
All I could think about was my mommy.
Was she awake?
Did she know I wasn't there?
Was she looking for me?
The questions repeated over and over until they drowned out everything else.
The traffic.
The people.
The city.
Everything became background noise.
My thoughts were somewhere else.
Behind a door.
Under a red light.
Waiting for someone to wake up.
---
I wasn't paying attention anymore.
Not really.
My eyes were open.
But I wasn't seeing anything.
My feet carried me forward automatically.
One step.
Then another.
Then another.
Without realizing it, I drifted away from the sidewalk.
Closer to the road.
Closer than I should have been.
A car horn exploded through the air.
Loud.
Sharp.
Terrifying.
For a split second, I froze.
My head snapped up.
People were shouting.
Someone screamed.
Maybe it was me.
Maybe it was someone else.
Even now, I don't know.
---
Everything happened too quickly.
The sound of brakes.
The flash of sunlight against metal.
The sudden realization that something was terribly wrong.
My foot slipped.
The world tilted.
The ground rushed toward me.
For one strange moment, everything seemed to slow down.
The city.
The noise.
The fear.
All of it stretched into silence.
Then darkness swallowed everything.
And I fell.
---
The last thing I remember hearing was someone shouting.
The last thing I remember feeling was the pavement beneath me.
Then nothing.
No sound.
No pain.
No light.
Just darkness.
Cold.
Endless.
Silent.
And for the second time in three days...
I disappeared into it.