The first thing you learn about the trauma bay is that it’s designed to make you feel powerless.
Not by the locks. Not by the glass. Not by the sterile light that never quite changes, no matter what time it is in the rest of the Array.
It’s the sound.
Machines that don’t panic. Alarms that don’t raise their voice. The soft, constant beep of someone else’s life being measured in polite intervals like it’s a schedule.
Nyra lies on the bed like she’s carved from the same clean white as the sheets, dark hair spread across the pillow, skin healed and too still. There’s no blood. No visible damage. Mira’s done her work. The healers did theirs.
And yet—
Her resonance is folded in on itself so completely that the space around her feels… wrong. Like walking into a room and realizing the air i
