The silence was the first thing that hurt.
In every version of the world I had lived in—the Nursery, the Holding, even the chaotic "Stitched" Seattle—there had always been a hum. A background vibration of electricity, of data flowing like a restless river, of the "Source" breathing. But here, in this small, sterile room, the air was dead.
I was lying on a bed with starched white sheets that felt like sandpaper against my skin. There was a steady, rhythmic *beep... beep... beep* coming from a monitor beside me. It wasn't the digital pulse of a server; it was the mechanical sound of a heart—**my** heart—struggling to remember how to pump real blood through real veins.
I tried to sit up, and a wave of nausea rolled over me so intense that I gasped. My lungs felt heavy, like they were fille
