Chapter 62: First Promise Broken I stood in front of the door. The words carved into it didn’t move. They didn’t glow. They didn’t pulse. They just sat there, plain and final, like a verdict already delivered. BREATH #4: FIRST PROMISE BROKEN. I didn’t need to turn around to know Mirabel was still behind me. I could feel her presence like a weight against my back, steady and silent. She wasn’t going to say anything. She wasn’t going to stop me. She was just going to watch. I reached for the door. It didn’t have a handle. No knob. No latch. Just smooth white surface, cold under my fingers. I pressed my palm flat against it. Nothing happened. I pushed. Still nothing. I stepped back, confused, and looked at my hand like it had failed me. Then I looked at the door again. The words hadn’t changed. The air hadn’t shifted. Mirabel hadn’t moved. I tried again. This time, I didn’t push. I just placed my hand there and waited. I didn’t know why. It wasn’t logic. It wasn’t memory. It was just something in my gut, something that told me this wasn’t a door you forced. It was a door you acknowledged. The surface gave way. Not with a click. Not with a hiss. Just a slow, silent slide to the side, like it had been waiting for me to understand. The moment it opened, the sterile white of the corridor behind me vanished. Not faded. Not dimmed. Just gone. Replaced by the dim, yellow-tinged glow of overhead lights I hadn’t seen in decades. A hospital hallway. Not the kind with clean floors and quiet efficiency. This one was older. The linoleum cracked near the baseboards. The paint on the walls was chipped in places, revealing older layers underneath. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and something else—something stale, like old meals and worn-out shoes. I knew this place. Not from memory. From bone. From breath. I stepped inside. The door sealed behind me without a sound. I didn’t turn to check. I already knew it was gone. There was no going back. Not now. Not ever. The hallway stretched ahead, empty except for the flickering lights and the distant hum of machinery I couldn’t place. My shoes made no sound against the floor. I didn’t feel the texture under my feet. I didn’t hear my own breathing. The only thing that existed was the hallway, and the two figures at the end of it. A boy. Maybe ten. Maybe twelve. Wearing a sweater too big for him, sleeves rolled up twice. Dark hair messy, eyes wide with something I couldn’t name—not fear, not excitement, not guilt. Just certainty. He was crouched down, one knee on the floor, talking to someone I couldn’t see yet. Then she turned. Six years old. Small. Wearing a hospital gown two sizes too big, the hem brushing the tops of her bare feet. Her hair was pulled into two uneven pigtails, one higher than the other. She held a stuffed rabbit in one hand, its ear frayed from too much love. Her other hand was wrapped around the boy’s wrist, fingers tight, like she was afraid he’d disappear if she let go. Mirabel. Not the woman who watched me with hollow eyes. Not the ghost who whispered from the walls. Not the patient strapped to the table. This was her. Before everything. Before me. Before the scalpel. Before the lies. Before the erasure. The boy—me—leaned closer. His voice was low, but I heard every word like it was being spoken directly into my skull. “I won’t let them take you.” She didn’t smile. She didn’t cry. She just stared at him, eyes unblinking, like she was memorizing his face. Like she knew this was the last time she’d see him like this—whole, unbroken, promising things he didn’t understand. “I won’t,” he repeated, squeezing her hand. “No matter what they say. No matter what they do. I’ll stay right here. I’ll fight them. I’ll scream. I’ll break things. I’ll—I’ll steal you out if I have to. I swear.” She nodded. Just once. Slow. Deliberate. Like she was sealing the promise in blood. Then she let go of his wrist. The boy stood up. He looked down at her for a long moment, then turned and walked away without looking back. She didn’t call after him. She didn’t reach for him. She just stood there, clutching the rabbit, watching him go. I took a step forward. Then another. The hallway didn’t change. The lights didn’t flicker. The air didn’t shift. But something inside me did. Something cracked open, something raw and bleeding, something I’d spent years burying under layers of denial and distraction. I could feel it rising, clawing its way up my throat, demanding to be acknowledged. Mirabel’s voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere. “You swore you’d never let them take me.” I stopped walking. The boy at the end of the hallway turned. Not slowly. Not dramatically. Just a simple pivot, like he’d been waiting for me to catch up. His face was younger, softer, untouched by the weight of what was coming. But his eyes—they were mine. The same hollow certainty. The same quiet arrogance. The same desperate need to believe he could fix things he didn’t understand. He held out his hand. In it was a scalpel. Clean. Sharp. Gleaming under the yellow lights. He didn’t smile. He didn’t frown. He just looked at me, waiting. “Prove you remember how to keep it.”