Chapter 28: What Was Her Name I stood in the center of the room with the scalpel still in my hand. The counter above me read zero. It didn’t blink. It didn’t tick. It just sat there, red and final, like a verdict already delivered. The silence wasn’t empty. It was full. Full of everything I hadn’t said. Full of every breath I should’ve taken but didn’t. Full of the child who wasn’t there anymore. I turned toward the spot where the table had vanished. Where she had been. Where I had stood over her, blade in hand, heart in throat, mind screaming stop but body frozen like a statue carved from guilt. I opened my mouth. The words came out slow, like they were being pulled from deep inside me, from a place I didn’t even know still worked. “What was her name?” The room didn’t answer right away. It didn’t speak. It didn’t crackle. It didn’t shift or groan or sigh. It just… shuddered. Not like something breaking. Not like something collapsing. Like something settling. Like the last page of a book being turned. Like the final note of a song being held until it fades into nothing. The floor beneath me rippled. Not like water. Not like earthquake. Like paper being pressed down after ink has been laid. A single word carved itself into the white surface, rising up like it had always been there, just waiting for me to ask. MIRA. I stared at it. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I just looked at the name. Mira. Not a stranger. Not a patient. Not a case file. Not Subject Zero. A name. A real one. Mine to remember. Mine to forget. Mine to carry. The walls around me dissolved. Not like they were melting. Not like they were crumbling. Like they were being erased, one pixel at a time, replaced by something else. Something colder. Something clinical. Something real. A corridor stretched out in front of me. Long. Narrow. Lit by flickering overhead panels that buzzed faintly, like machines running on dying batteries. On either side, hospital monitors lined the walls. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Each one showed the same thing. Flatline. One after another. Heart rate: zero. Oxygen: zero. Brain activity: zero. All labeled with the same name. MIRA. I stepped forward. The scalpel didn’t feel heavy anymore. It didn’t feel sharp. It didn’t feel like a weapon. It felt like a witness. Like the only thing that had been there when no one else was. When I wasn’t. When I chose not to be. I walked past the first monitor. Then the second. Then the third. Each one showed the same flat trace. Each one ticked off a second of silence. Each one marked a breath I didn’t take when I should have. I didn’t look away. I didn’t speed up. I just walked. The air didn’t change. The light didn’t shift. The silence didn’t break. Until it did. The first monitor—the one at the very end of the corridor—flickered. Not like it was dying. Like it was waking up. The flatline stuttered. Then jumped. Then stabilized. A heartbeat. Slow. Steady. Alive. The screen adjusted. The vitals climbed. Oxygen levels rose. Brain waves flickered into rhythm. And then— She blinked. Mira. Her eyes opened. Not wide. Not startled. Not scared. Just… awake. She turned her head slightly, as if she could see me through the glass of the monitor, through the walls of the corridor, through the layers of memory and guilt and silence I had wrapped myself in. Her lips moved. No sound came out. But I didn’t need sound. I knew what she was saying. She was whispering. Directly to me.