A Sin For White Wings

Chapter 2 (ep.2)

I leaned into the microscope.

I didn't see cells. I didn't see life. I saw a crystalline lattice of deep, pulsating violet—a structure that looked more like a constellation than a biological fluid. It didn't flow; it vibrated. It was beautiful, and it was a death sentence.

"No," I whispered, pulling back, my breath coming in jagged gasps. "No, no, no."

I checked the monitor in the lab that was synced to his room. Flatline. No pulse. No blood pressure. To the machines, he was a corpse. But through the observation glass, I could see his chest moving in a slow, agonizing rhythm.

Panic, cold and sharp, crawled up my throat. If the Chief of Medicine saw this, they’d call the authorities. They’d take him to a research facility, or worse, they’d recognize him for what the Church said he was: a glitch in God’s design.

And I, a daughter of a religious house, had brought him here. I had touched him. I was currently trying to save a soul that was already supposed to be in Hell.

I looked at the slide again. I should break it. I should wash it down the drain and run as far as I could from this hospital.

But then I remembered the way he had stepped in front of me. I remembered the sound of that silver blade sinking into his side—a sound meant for me.

I wasn't just scared of him. I was scared of me. Because I realized, with a sinking horror, that I wasn't going to report him. I was going to hide him.

And that was the first step toward the fire.

I hurried back to Trauma Room 4, clutching his "impossible" lab results to my chest like they were a confession. My plan was to delete the digital records before the morning shift arrived, but when I pushed through the heavy double doors, the air in the room felt different.

The rhythmic beep of the heart monitor had changed. It wasn't a flatline anymore. It was a frantic, jagged screech.

"He’s crashing!" Sarah, the nurse, shouted, reaching for the defibrillator paddles.

"Doctor, he just spiked a fever of 42°C and his heart is—I don't even know what this rhythm is!"

"Don't!" I screamed, lunging forward and grabbing her arm. "Don't shock him!"

I didn't know why I said it. Medical instinct told me to help her, but my soul told me that electricity would only tear apart whatever strange, crystalline structure was keeping him alive.

Suddenly, the stranger’s eyes snapped open.

They weren't the eyes of a patient. They were twin voids of midnight, wide and brimming with a primal, agonizing fear. He didn't gasp for air; he let out a sound that wasn't human—a low, vibrating hum that made the glass medicine vials on the counter rattle.