Scarlet lay comatose in the ICU, her body framed by tubing and wires, her existence translated into sound. Machines hummed steadily at her bedside, indifferent and tireless. Electrodes tracked the faintest flickers of electrical activity across a monitor, minimal but present, a quiet insistence that she was still there.
Ward stood beside the bed, his clipboard resting uselessly against his leg. Habit had brought it with him, not purpose. He leaned in slightly, eyes moving from screen to screen, his voice slipping into the familiar, automatic cadence of clinical reporting. “BP’s one-ten over eighty-five,” he murmured. “Heart rate’s sixty-eight. Brain activity is still minimal. Little to no change.”
The numbers hung in the air, cold and precise. They said nothing about Scarlet as a person.
