The biting cold of the pavement seeped into her bones, a stark reminder of her broken body. The metallic tang of blood filled her nostrils, a prelude to the darkness that was swiftly consuming her vision. Faint murmurs reached her ears, distant and indifferent, belonging to people who simply watched, never cared. Her last thought, a haunting echo of a life unlived, was a question she'd carried for years: "Was I ever truly meant to exist?"

Then, blessed oblivion. When she opened her eyes again, a grand chandelier shimmered above her, casting golden light on familiar, elegant walls. The heavy scent of jasmine clung to the air, and in the polished mirror across the room, a girl stared back. A girl she knew all too well.

The same long, dark hair, the same tired brown eyes, the same delicate features that had never been enough to make anyone stay. She had been reborn, not in another world, not as someone new, but back in the very same life she had lost—the life that had been nothing but suffering. Memories crashed into her like a tidal wave: the cold, distant family, the love she’d given so freely but never received, the man she’d protected from the sidelines only to be cast aside.