I took time to expand scenes, thoughts, pauses, body language, and memory without rewriting who the characters are.
The hospital room was quiet.
Not the peaceful kind of quiet, but the kind that pressed down on my ears until everything felt too loud anyway. The machines beside the bed hummed softly, their steady rhythm reminding me that I was still here, still breathing. The doctor had already left. The door was closed. The hallway noises were distant, muffled, like the world had been placed behind glass.
The only people in the room right now were me, Soren, and Jamie.
The silence stretched so long that it felt fragile, like it would shatter if anyone moved too fast. If a pin dropped, I was sure it would echo. Even breathing felt like something I had to be careful about, like I might disturb something important if I inhaled too loudly.
