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Scarlet woke to the smell of disinfectant and recycled air.

Hospital. The knowledge came before she opened her eyes. She knew that smell, that particular quality of silence that was not really silence but the low hum of machines and distant, muffled voices. She had spent months in places like this while her parents died, one slow, sterile day at a time.

Pain throbbed through her side when she tried to move. It was not the sharp, screaming agony from the street, but a deep, grinding ache that promised weeks of healing ahead. She forced her eyes open. White ceiling tiles. Fluorescent lights. An IV stand next to her bed, with clear fluid dripping steadily into her arm.

Alive. She was alive.

The memory of the colorless place felt distant now, like a dream half-remembered upon waking. Had it been real? Or had the paramedic been right about oxygen deprivation and hallucination? She clung to the rational explanation, the one that did not mean the world was broken.

“Ms. Lewis.” A doctor appeared at her bedside, a clipboard in his hand. He was young, looked tired, but his voice was professional. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I got stabbed,” Scarlet said. Her voice came out rough and scratchy. “Because I did.”

“You were very lucky. The knife missed your major organs by centimeters. We had to perform emergency surgery to stop the bleeding, but the damage was minimal, all things considered.” He checked something on his clipboard. “You were technically dead for one minute and forty-three seconds. The paramedics did excellent work bringing you back.”

Dead. The word hung in the air between them. One minute and forty-three seconds of not breathing, not having a heartbeat. Long enough to float in that ashen place. Long enough to see things that could not possibly be real.

“There may be some neurological side effects,” the doctor continued, his tone matter-of-fact. “Lack of oxygen to the brain can cause confusion, memory problems, and sometimes hallucinations. If you experience anything unusual, you must let the nurses know immediately.”

Hallucinations. There it was. The rational explanation. The safe, scientific reason for what she had seen.

Scarlet wanted to believe it. She desperately wanted to accept that the ghosts in the fog had been nothing more than her dying brain misfiring. But the memory was too clear, too vivid. She could still feel the profound chill. She could still hear the sound of those desperate voices.

“How long do I have to stay here?” she asked, the question tasting like ash.

“At least three days for observation. It will be longer if we see any signs of infection or other complications.” The doctor made a note on his clipboard. “Do you have any family we should contact? Someone who can help with your recovery?”

“No.” The word came out flat and automatic. She had no family. She had no friends who would drop everything to sit by her bedside. There was just her, alone, facing another mountain of medical debt she could not possibly pay.

The doctor’s expression softened with a practiced sympathy. It was the look he probably gave to everyone who was young and alone and broken. “The police will want to speak with you when you are feeling up to it. About the attack.”

Scarlet nodded. Let them come. She would tell them what happened, they would write it down in a report, and nothing would change. The drunk and his friends would disappear into the city. The case would go cold. Justice was for people who had money and connections.

The doctor left. A nurse came in to check her vitals, adjust her IV, and ask questions about her pain levels on a scale of one to ten. Scarlet answered automatically, her mind elsewhere.

Three days in the hospital. Three days of mounting bills. Three days of not working her jobs, not making payments. The debt would grow. It always grew.

But she was alive. That had to count for something.

The nurse left her, and silence settled over the room. It was not true silence. The monitors beside her bed beeped softly. Somewhere down the hall, someone coughed. The hospital hummed with the constant, quiet activity of keeping people from dying.

Scarlet closed her eyes. Exhaustion pulled at her, but she fought against it. Sleep felt dangerous now, like falling back into that colorless place. Like letting go of consciousness and drifting into spaces where the boundaries between the living and the dead had begun to blur.

A sound made her eyes snap open.

Static. It was soft and crackling, like an old radio searching for a signal. It came from the corner of the room, near the window. Scarlet turned her head, ignoring the spike of pain from the sudden movement.

There was nothing. Just shadows and empty space.

The static continued, rising and falling in soft waves. It was almost like breathing. It was almost like words, if she listened hard enough.

Morphine, she told herself. The doctor said there might be side effects. This was just the drugs playing tricks with her hearing.

But the static did not sound like a drug-induced hallucination. It sounded real. It sounded present.

Scarlet stared at the corner until her eyes burned. The static faded gradually, sinking back into the hum of the hospital. When it was gone completely, she let herself breathe again.

It was just the drugs. It was just her traumatized brain trying to make sense of dying and coming back.

She repeated it like a mantra as she finally let exhaustion drag her under. Just the drugs. Just hallucinations. Just the oxygen-starved neurons misfiring in her skull.

But deep in her chest, in the place where certainty lived, she did not believe it.