The echo of her name

The first thing Eli Thorne remembered was the sound of rain.
Not the sterile hum of hospital lights or the distant voices of nurses — just rain, soft and endless, falling somewhere far away.

Then, a whisper.
A name.

> “Arden…”

He didn’t know whose voice it was — only that it made his chest ache like a memory just out of reach.

When he opened his eyes, white light swallowed him whole. Machines beeped. The air smelled of antiseptic and metal. A nurse gasped, pressing a button.

“Doctor! He’s awake!”

Eli blinked, his throat dry. His body felt foreign — like it belonged to someone else. Weeks — maybe months — had been stolen from him.

“How long…” His voice cracked. “How long have I been here?”

“Eighty-seven days,” the nurse said softly. “You’ve been in a coma since the accident.”

Accident.
The word dropped into his chest like a stone.

Eighty-seven days of nothing — and all he had was a single word left in his mind. A name that wasn’t his.

When the doctor left, Eli stared at the window. Rain streaked down the glass, blurring the world outside. He whispered it again, testing the sound on his lips.

> “Arden.”

Something about it felt alive — electric — as if the name itself carried weight.

Later that night, when he finally slept, he saw her.

A girl standing in the rain.
Dark hair plastered to her skin. Eyes full of sorrow. She reached for him, whispering something he couldn’t quite hear.

When he woke again, his heart was racing — and on the heart monitor, his pulse spiked in time with the storm outside.

He didn’t know it yet, but somewhere in the same city, Arden Vale was painting that exact scene — a man waking in a hospital bed under a storm, his lips forming a name she didn’t know she’d heard before.