Between Red & Black || Sodani

Chapter 1

Quick Reminders:

This is purely just a fan fiction. Names, characters, places, events, etc. are either from the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner.

And for any grammatical mistakes, i genuinely apologize as english is not my first language.

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Daniela had always hated mornings.

Not because there was anything particularly wrong with them. Morning was simply too honest. It arrived before she was ready for it, dragging sunlight through curtains she had forgotten to close and illuminating all the things she had managed not to think about the night before. It was the hour when dreams surrendered their disguises, when the warmth of sleep gave way to the cold certainty of being awake.

Lately, waking up had become a kind of punishment.

She would open her eyes and, for a fraction of a second, forget.

That fraction was precious.

Sometimes she would lie perfectly still beneath the blankets, eyes half-open, watching the pale light gather across the ceiling while her mind remained suspended somewhere between sleep and reality. In those moments, everything was still possible. She could almost believe she was back in one of those mornings when the world had been simple enough to understand, when there had been coffee waiting in the kitchen and a familiar voice complaining that she was taking too long to get out of bed.

Then memory would return.

And the room would become empty again.

Daniela woke at 7:13 on a Tuesday morning.

She knew the time because she had been staring at the clock for several minutes before finally deciding she had no reason to get up.

The apartment was quiet.

Outside, the city was already awake. Cars murmured along the street below, tires hissing over damp pavement. Somewhere in the neighboring building, a television played faintly through a wall. A child laughed. Someone dropped something heavy in the hallway, followed by a muffled apology.

Ordinary sounds.

She hated ordinary sounds.

They made everything feel as though the world had continued without asking her permission.

Daniela turned onto her side and stared at the empty half of the bed.

The pillow beside hers was untouched.

She had stopped keeping it there after the first month.

Then she had put it back.

She wasn't sure which decision hurt more.

Her fingers moved absently over the sheet, smoothing out a crease that didn't need smoothing. The gesture had become habitual. There were things grief taught the body before the mind understood them: reaching toward an empty chair, making two cups of coffee, turning to tell someone something before remembering there was no one to tell.

She had learned to live around the missing pieces.

That was what everyone kept saying, anyway.

You're getting better.

You're doing okay.

She's proud of you.

Daniela hated that last one most of all.