The last thing Erica remembered clearly was the sky - soft pinks and oranges melting into the evening. Her breath had caught in her chest, not from fear, but from excitement.
Then darkness.
Not night - something else. Something sudden and brutal. A hand. A rag. The chemical sting of chloroform dragging her under.
When she came to, the world was spinning, her body numb and distant. Something cold pressed against her back - concrete. Her limbs refused to move. Her eyes fluttered open but couldn't focus.
Laughter. Voices. Male. Young. Cruel.
"She's awake."
"Barely. Doesn't matter. She's not going anywhere."
"Look at her. She thought this was a date."
Erica tried to speak - to scream - but her throat burned raw, like something had been shoved down it.
Fingers gripped her wrists. Tore her dress. Pulled at her body like it wasn't hers. Her world fractured into flashes - of faces she couldn't remember, of pain she would never forget.
"Don't be gentle. No one's watching," one of them sneered.
"She wanted attention," another spat. "She got it."
One held her down.
One whispered filth in her ear.
One laughed as he zipped his pants back up.
And one said, almost casually, "She's not gonna survive this, right?"
A long pause.
Then someone muttered, "Doesn't matter. She won't talk."
They left her there - bleeding, shaking, broken. A discarded thing.
And they never looked back.
-
Rishi was biking through the lot just after sunset, cutting across town to avoid traffic. He wasn't supposed to be there. No one was.
But he saw something - a shape, a shadow, a body.
He stopped.
Dropped his bike.
Ran.
Her skin was pale, blood crusted between her thighs, bruises blooming like ink across her arms and face. She was barely breathing.
His fingers trembled as he called emergency.
"There's a girl - she's hurt - I think she's been... I think she's dying."
He stayed with her, whispering that help was coming, even though he wasn't sure if she could hear.
-
Hospital lights.
Machines.
Hands.
Pain.
When Erica woke, it wasn't relief that met her - it was horror.
Her body screamed. Every nerve burned. Her lips were swollen, her thighs aching, her ribs bruised like she'd been crushed from the inside out.
She couldn't speak. Not yet. Not when it hurt to breathe.
Tears slid down her cheeks as her mind replayed the fragments she could remember - faceless boys. Laughter. Cruelty. Her own silence.
She didn't know who they were.
But they knew what they'd done.
They left her to die.
And now she was alive.
Her body screamed in pain. Every nerve felt shredded, her chest heaving with each fragile breath. Nurses moved around her, the beeping of the machines like an unnatural lullaby.
Her hand, trembling, reached for her phone. It rested on the bedside table, still sealed in a plastic bag, untouched by the chaos around her. The nurse watched her closely but said nothing.
Erica's fingers brushed against the phone's surface. The cold, smooth plastic felt foreign to her - like it belonged to someone else.