I’d been dead only an hour when I realized no one was coming. No light, no tunnel, no hands reaching, just me, lying still in a world that never paused. The clock kept ticking. The dishes in the sink still waited to be washed. My phone buzzed with a message from someone who didn’t know I’d never text back. I thought maybe I’d feel lighter, but I was still heavy heavy with everything I never said, everything I never became. Death wasn’t an escape, just an echo of the life I never really lived. Maybe I’d been dead longer than an hour. Maybe I was dying the whole time.