The ceiling tiles were all the same shade of dull white, but Zanka had memorized every crack, every water stain, every shadow cast by the overhead lamp. He had nothing else he could do.

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t train. He couldn’t even sit up without pain stabbing through his core.

His hands rested over the thick bandages wrapped around his stomach, fingers barely curved, as if even the slightest pressure might tear him open again. Eisha had said he’d be fine “as long as he didn’t strain himself.”

Zanka had wanted to laugh. Straining himself was the only thing he knew how to do.

Instead, he lay there.

Days had passed—maybe a week. Time felt slippery, slow, suffocating. Every hour blended with the next. The antiseptic smell of the hospital clung to the air, and the steady hum of the old machinery made the silence worse.

He hated this. Being still. Being weak. Being left behind while the others were fighting, working, moving forward.

His breath shuddered when he tried to inhale too deeply. The wound burned, a reminder carved straight into his flesh:

Mymo beat you. You weren’t enough. You weren’t strong enough.

Zanka squeezed his eyes shut. The movement pulled his bandages, and pain shot up his torso, ripping a low sound from his throat before he could stop it. He forced himself quiet immediately.

He couldn’t even lie here without hurting.

His brother’s voice echoed in the back of his mind—sharp, cold, dismissive.

“You’re too soft, Zanka. Too slow. Too weak.”

He had spent years trying to disprove those words. Training harder. Getting sharper. Learning his instrument until it felt like an extension of his bones. And yet here he was.

Flat on his back. Unable to lift his own body weight. A Cleaner who couldn’t clean up after himself.

He swallowed hard, jaw tight. Shame crept up his throat, hot and nauseating.

What were the others doing right now? Fighting? Gathering intel? Risking themselves while he lay useless in a bed like some helpless child?

He wanted to be out there. He wanted to train. He wanted to move.

But all he could do was press his hands lightly into the blankets over his stomach and pray the pain didn’t spike again.

The room was too quiet. Too empty. Too good at letting thoughts fester.

He closed his eyes again. It didn’t help.

Footsteps approached the door—soft, quick, unmistakably anxious. Zanka didn’t look. He didn’t have the energy to pretend he was fine.

The door slid open with a low creak.

“Zanka…?”

Follo’s voice wavered on the edge of worry.

And Zanka’s eyes finally opened.