**[Operating Theater – Pre-Dawn]**
Nathan lay on the surgical table, monitors already attached, oxygen mask fogging faintly with each breath.
The anesthesiologist leaned over. “Count backward from ten."
He blinked up at the ceiling. “Ten... nine... eight..."
His mind slipped.
---
**[Dreamscape – Somewhere Between Memory and Regret]**
A courtroom. Empty.
He stood alone at the defendant's table.
Aileen sat across from him—not chained, not broken. Just... waiting.
He opened his mouth to speak.
But no sound came.
She rose. Walked to him.
Handed him a pencil.
Then turned and walked away.
He looked down.
The pencil turned to a scalpel in his palm.
He dropped it.
The floor cracked.
And he was falling—
---
**[Present – Operating Room, Minutes Later]**
“BP dropping," the nurse
