Fragile Dawn
The machines didn't just beep; they kept a cold, electronic tally of the seconds through the dark—a rhythmic, high-pitched scratching that I couldn't bring myself to trust. I hadn’t closed my eyes. The skin behind my ears felt tight, vibrating with an exhaustion so deep it felt like an illness. Every time the shadows shifted across the concrete ceiling, the room would vanish, replaced by the white glare of the halogens on the logging road, the heavy *thud* of Kai’s boots hitting the shale, and that final, flat look he’d given me across the water—the look of an analyst who had calculated his own survival probability down to zero and accepted the terms. I stayed curled along the very edge of the narrow army cot, my chin resting against the coarse canvas of his pillow, tracking the shallow,
- Writer
