I didn’t know how long I had been sitting there outside the Healing House. Time inside the capital tunnels moved strangely. There were no windows, no sun—only the steady burn of torches and the quiet rhythm of people passing through the corridors.
At some point, the whispers around me had finally faded. The survivors drifted away, taken to their Houses or escorted to healers—or maybe even going to sleep. But still… I stayed.
The stone bench outside the Healing House had grown uncomfortably hard beneath me, and my hands had long since gone numb from gripping each other too tightly.
Every time the doors opened, my heart leapt.
Every time they closed again without news, the weight inside my chest grew even heavier.
Krystal’s blood coating my hands had dried long ago, leaving dark stains
