The room had settled into a deceptive calm, the kind that blankets a hospital in the late hours of the night. Machines hummed softly. Willow's breaths came slow and shallow, her lashes fluttering as medication pulled her toward sleep and pain dragged her back up again. The ache in her abdomen had changed—no longer the clean, predictable burn of an incision, but something deeper, heavier, as if a fist inside her pelvis had begun to close.
The quiet felt fragile, stretched thin over something volatile. Each beep from the monitor landed too loudly in Willow's ears, the sound echoing through her chest like a countdown she didn't understand. Her body felt unfamiliar—heavy in some places, hollow in others—as though the boundaries between pain and pressure had begun to blur.
She shifted on the bed, pressing her palm below her ribs. A bolt of pain spread across her lower abdomen and wrapped around her hip. She inhaled sharply, teeth clenched.
