I woke up to silence.
The kind that made the air feel too heavy. Like the room itself was listening.
Dim lights buzzed faintly above, casting a sterile glow across metal walls and a concrete floor. The cot beneath me was narrow, hard, more like a slab than a bed. My body throbbed in places I didn't remember hitting. Dull aches in my ribs, in my wrist. My right arm burned, not with fire, but with something else—pressure. Like something had burrowed beneath the skin and was trying to hum its way out.
My mouth was dry. My breath shallow. My throat tasted of iron and fear.
I tried to sit up, and pain bloomed behind my eyes. I winced. Sat slower. My hands were shaking.
The room was small, clean in a cold, uncaring way. A steel desk sat against the far wall. A withered plant rested on its corner, half-drenched in dust. Opposite that was a bolted door—no windows, no clock. I had no way of knowing how long I'd been here, or how I got here.
But I wasn't alone. I could feel it.
There was something in the air—beneath the sterile scent of antiseptic and metal. Something older. Quieter. A stillness that didn't belong in a hospital or a cell.
It felt like the room was holding its breath.
Then, the door clicked.
She entered without speaking.
Slender build. Pale skin with an olive undertone. Dark hair tied in a low ponytail. She wore dark utility clothing, a black jacket half-zipped over a plain medical uniform. Her hands, gloved and calloused, moved with practiced precision.
She didn't introduce herself. Just looked at me like I might detonate.
Her gaze moved across my body, scanning for something. I didn't know what. She pulled a small flashlight from her coat and approached the bed.
"Stay still," she said, her voice flat. Not cold, just... tired.
I didn't argue.
She checked my eyes, my pulse, asked if I could speak. I nodded. She took my temperature. Her hands were gentle, but distant. Every movement was mechanical, restrained.
"You're stable," she murmured, more to herself than to me.
I swallowed. My voice cracked. "Where am I?"
She hesitated—not because she didn't know, but because she wasn't sure if she should tell me.
Before she could answer, a voice cut in from behind the door.
"You're somewhere safer than you were."
And then he stepped inside.
He didn't walk. He entered—like he was the owner of every space he stood in. White hair. Blindfold. Hands in his pockets. The smile on his face didn't quite reach the rest of him.
Satoru Gojo.
I didn't know him. Not really. But something in the room shifted when he arrived. Even the light seemed to fold around him.
He nodded at the girl, who gave a faint bow and stepped back toward the door, pausing only to glance at me once more. Not out of fear. Not out of pity.
Out of understanding.
Then she left.
Gojo waited until the door clicked shut before speaking again.
"You gave us quite the scare," he said, smiling. "One second you're a body on the floor. Next second, everything screams."
I stared at him.
"You remember anything?" he asked, walking slowly around the bed. "That cursed spirit, the tunnel, the power surge?"
I nodded once. "Some."
"Good," he said. "Means the brain's intact. Shame about everything else."
He stopped at the steel desk and ran a finger across its edge. His tone was light, but there was something off about the way he moved. Like he was listening to a second conversation I couldn't hear.
"Your energy," he said after a moment, "doesn't match anything I've ever seen. It's not cursed. It's not reversed. It's... something else."
He reached down and touched the dying plant on the desk.
It bloomed.
Not fully. Just enough. A single, pale flower unfurled from its brittle stalk.
He didn't react. Didn't even look surprised.
"This is what you do," he said. "You undo things. Quietly. Like the opposite of decay."
I looked down at my hands.
They weren't glowing. They weren't burning.
But I could feel something beneath the skin. A current. A whisper. Not angry. Not cruel. Just waiting.
"Where did you learn to do this?" Gojo asked.
"I didn't," I said.
He nodded like he already knew that. He stepped closer, crouching beside me.
"Listen," he said, quieter now. "People like me... we're rare. Strong. Dangerous. But we still follow rules. We still fit into boxes."
His smile faded.
"You don't."
He stood up and walked back toward the door, hands still in his pockets.
"You're not a problem yet," he said. "But you're going to make everyone nervous. You already have."
He reached for the handle.
"This world doesn't make people like you," he said, turning back slightly. "So where exactly did you come from?"
I didn't answer. Couldn't.
He left.
The room was still again.
And in the stillness... something shifted.
A whisper.
Not sound. Not words. Just pressure against my chest, like a heartbeat I didn't recognize. The walls seemed to close in, not physically—but spiritually. The room held its breath with me.
For a moment, I felt it.
My body stopped aching.
The heat in my arm eased.
And in that quiet, I felt seen.
Not loved.
Not safe.
Just found.