That’s the thing they don’t tell you—sometimes the worst parts of the job don’t happen on scene, they show up later, when you're trying to sleep. The dreams come without warning, dragging pieces of memory you thought you'd buried.

I wrote Tears after one of the quietest, most emotionally jarring calls I’d run in months. It wasn’t trauma in the traditional sense—no gore, no chaos—but there was something haunting about that woman lying on her back, one side of her body betraying her while the other cried in silence.

Part II of the story.

I wrote this one after a night that left me shaken—not because of blood or violence, but because I came face to face with something I’d never considered: someone impersonating me. Not me personally, but the uniform, the role, the responsibility.

This call was the inspiration for Chapter 1 in The Trilogy Project.

After my shift, I sat in my car and cried harder than I ever had on shift. That yellow band on his wrist—the one that said LiveSTRONG—wasn’t just a slogan anymore. It became a promise. A memory. A reminder of how fragile this whole thing really is, and how lucky we are to still be breathing. I wear mine for him now.