By noon, the news cycle had already found fresher tragedy, and the footage of shrieking brakes and scattered shoes slid lower on the homepage. Office small talk carefully stepped around it, as if naming the horror might invite it back. Yet in pockets of the city, people crossed that intersection with held breath, counting the seconds, listening for the phantom growl of an engine that wasn’t there.

In the weeks that followed, flowers wilted against a lamppost no one had noticed before. A mother changed her route to daycare, adding fifteen safe but aching minutes. A driver eased off the gas at every yellow, haunted by the sound of impact he couldn’t unhear. The city, efficient as ever, smoothed the pavement and repainted the lines. But beneath the fresh white stripes lived a fault line only the survivors could feel, a quiet fracture running through routine, reminding them that even on ordinary mornings, the ground can turn suddenly, mercilessly, against them.