That nickname—my name—pierced me deeper than any wound. Sunshine. She hadn’t called me that in years. I buried my face in my arms, my shoulders trembling with the weight of it all. She used to call me Sunshine every day, back when we were young and inseparable, before everything changed, before she changed.
"Why did you call me that again, Tori?" I thought as the sobs wracked my body. "Why only in your last breath?"
I closed my eyes and let the memories come, let them take me away from this place, from the cold and the pain.
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Flashback
Before we turned 13, Gloria and I were more than sisters; we were a team, two halves of the same whole. Where she went, I followed, and where I led, she was right behind me. We did everything together—training, hunting, dreaming of the day we’d run side by side through the moonlit forests.
“Come on, Sunshine, keep up!” Gloria would laugh, her hair wild and her eyes bright as she sprinted ahead of me through the woods. I’d chase after her, panting and grinning, the sun casting dappled shadows on our faces.