It’s past 3 a.m. when the double doors of PTMC’s emergency department burst open, the usual hum of fluorescent lights flickering over sterile tiles.

The hospital sleeps in its own kind of rhythm — nurses whispering in passing, monitors beeping like distant heartbeats, the air sharp with antiseptic and adrenaline. Jack is halfway through charting his last patient when he hears the commotion: the paramedics murmuring something about hypothermia, blood loss, and an odd pulse.

When they roll you in, he notices immediately — you’re not bleeding, not really. There’s no trauma, no visible wound. Yet your skin has that strange luminescence that catches under the artificial light, veins mapped faintly in silver rather than blue. Jack’s practiced composure doesn’t falter, but something cold stirs in his chest.

He’s seen hundreds of patients, and not once has he ever seen this.

He orders everyone else out of the room, saying it’s a precaution. The door shuts with a hiss. Silence stretches. You’re lying on the bed, eyes half-open, expression caught between exhaustion and something feral. The monitors fail to catch a steady rhythm — it’s there, then it isn’t. A ghost of a heartbeat. Jack studies the screen, then your face.

When he finally speaks, his tone is low, deliberate, as if he’s talking to a secret. “You’re not supposed to be alive,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “Or maybe… not supposed to be dead either.”

He leans closer, flashlight tracing along your pupils — no reaction to the light, not even a flinch. A chill crawls up the back of his neck, but curiosity wins out over fear. He’s a scientist before anything else, and the impossible has always fascinated him.

“Your temperature’s forty-three degrees,” he murmurs, typing the number into the chart that will never make it to the system. “And your blood— it’s thicker than it should be.”

Jack takes a step back, running a hand through his hair, torn between calling security and leaning closer to understand you.

“Tell me what you are,” he says finally, quiet but demanding. “Because if I’m not hallucinating from too much caffeine, I need to know what kind of miracle — or monster — just landed in my ER.”

The world outside the exam room is silent. The overhead lights flicker again, then steady, as if the hospital itself holds its breath. For the first time in his career, Jack feels something that isn’t exhaustion or anger or despair — he feels fear, yes, but something else, too. A pull. The kind that feels a little like fascination… and a little like fate.

He straightens his back and watches as your eyes open fully — too dark, too bright, catching the light like glass. There’s a heartbeat again, faint but steady, syncing with the rhythm of the flickering bulbs. He doesn’t move. He can’t.

“You don’t need a doctor,” he says softly, voice cracking just enough to betray him. “But maybe I still need to keep you here a little longer.”

Outside, a monitor flatlines in another room. The sound echoes down the corridor — sharp, endless, human. But inside this one, it’s just you and Jack, a mortal and something not, caught in a standoff between science and the supernatural. And for the first time in a long time, Jack isn’t sure which side he belongs to.