One second we were on the streets. The next second bam we were somewhere completely different.
My eyes adjusted slowly. Fluorescent lights buzzed above us. The walls were too white, too clean. It smelled like something bitter and sterile. Not flowers or sweet things more like metal and something I couldn't quite name.
I looked around. "Where are we?" I whispered, my voice shrinking as I looked around
"This," Uncle Kone said, putting a hand on my back gently, "is called a hospital."
A place where humans get healed, he explained.
Only… it didn't feel very healing at first. It felt heavy.
He guided me down the hall, and I noticed how different this place was from the our world. It was quiet, but not peaceful. The kind of quiet that held its breath. That waited. The walls were lined with doors, machines that beeped and clicked, and people who looked… tired. Some sat slumped on benches, some whispered into their phones, others just stared into nothing.
And then we entered a room.
Beds. So many beds. Some had children, tiny and still, with wires stuck into their arms and little blinking lights beside them. Others were older, eyes closed, faces pale. One woman sat beside a boy, humming a song while brushing his hair gently.
My heart dropped to my feet.
I'd never seen anything like this. Not in the sky. Not in my dreams. These people looked broken, fragile. Like just a little push would shatter them completely.
I froze.
"They get sick,they are not immortal like us" Uncle Kone said beside me, his voice lower now. "They hurt. Their bodies give up too soon, Sometimes by accident, sometimes from disease. And not all of them can be healed."
He looked ahead, not at me. "That's why I come here."
I didn't speak. Couldn't.
"I don't just sneak around for fun, Azura. I come because they need someone who can help. Who can give them a second chance, Just a little magic. A little hope."
And then I saw it. A girl in the farthest bed breathing through a machine. And a woman had her forehead pressed to his hand, whispering words I didn't understand. Her voice cracked.
I looked at Kone. I understand now. Every bit of it. The sneaking. The visits. The sadness in his eyes when he spoke of Earth.
This was it. He was trying to heal a world that barely noticed him.
He turned to me with a small, quiet smile. "Come. I want to show you something."
As we walked down another corridor, a woman in white rounded the corner. A doctor, and I secretly admire her beautiful she was, She wore no makeup. Her hair was messily tied up. Her eyes were tired, but alert, sharp like lightning. And when she saw Uncle Kone, she stopped.
I mean, she froze.
Her eyes widened, and she took one slow breath, like she had just seen a ghost.
Uncle Kone… didn't say anything either.
They just stared at each other.
I blinked.
The tension in the air? I know ,if someone dropped a pin, the entire hospital would hear it.
She crossed her arms. "Still sneaking around, I see."
Kone didn't flinch. "Still watching every hallway like a hawk, I see."
Was this flirting?
The woman exhaled sharply. "You know this is against every protocol in this building."
"And yet you never reported me," Kone replied.
Was I imagining it… or did I just see the corner of her lips twitch? Just for a second.
She glanced at me then, as if just realizing I existed. Her eyes softened a little. "Who's the child?"
"I'm not a child," I corrected proudly, standing a little taller. "I'm older than you. Just… prettier."
Her eyebrows lifted. Kone chuckled.
"This is my niece," he said simply. "Azura."
She nodded once. "Well, Azura. Nice to meet you."
I smiled at her,still watching the weird storm of energy brewing between her and my uncle. I couldn't place it. Not quite love. Not quite hate. But definitely something that needed unpacking.
Uncle Kone cleared his throat. "We're just passing through."
********
"I'm sure," she said, I wasn't trying to be nosy. Okay, maybe I was. But in my defense, Uncle Kone and the mysterious doctor-lady were giving off that kind of energy the heavy, tension-filled kind that could slice through a mountain. So I figured I'd give them space. Let them work through their history or heartbreak or… whatever that awkward silence was.
So I slipped away, quietly, walking down a pale corridor that hummed with fluorescent light.
Hospitals had a strange smell. Not entirely unpleasant, just a blend of clean chemicals, tired air, and something else I couldn't quite place. Something… human.
I turned a corner and came to an abrupt halt.
There, on a long metal bench, sat a man and a woman. She was cryingn, not just crying. She was in deep pain that I could feel. Her face was crumpled into her hands, shoulders trembling as if she was holding the entire world on her back. The man beside her had one arm around her and was whispering something I couldn't hear, but his own face looked like it had been weathered by a storm.
"I can't lose him," she sobbed. "I can't, he's my baby. He's all I have."
The man didn't speak. He just held her tighter. Like if he let go, they'd both disappear.
I pressed myself against the wall, silently watching. Not to intrude, but I just couldn't look away. Grief was such a quiet, loud thing.
Eventually, a nurse approached and gently ushered them away. The woman wiped her face with the edge of her sleeve. The man offered a small, broken smile. They left, hand in hand, their shadows trailing behind them like regret.
The door to the ward stood slightly ajar.
I don't know why I went inside. I just… did.
It was quiet.
A single bed sat near the window, surrounded by machines that beeped softly, too softly. Wires stretched from the machines to a small figure lying still beneath the covers.
A boy. No older than seven, maybe eight. His skin was so pale it almost matched the sheets. His chest rose and fell so faintly I had to stare to be sure he was breathing at all.
There was something about him. Something so… fragile, and yet… fighting.
I stepped closer.
I didn't plan to touch him. I really didn't. But something tugged at me,instinct, maybe. A whisper from somewhere inside.
I reached for his hand.
The moment our skin touched, a warmth bloomed in my chest. A soft, golden pulse that flowed from me to him. I gasped, watching it spread, delicate and steady, like sunlight chasing away a shadow.
The glow traveled up his arm, through the tubes, around his chest, into his heart.
I wanted to pull away, to stop it before someone came in, before someone saw what I was doing,whatever it was I was doing.
But then, his eyelids fluttered.
I froze.
One second. Two. Three.
His eyes opened.
Wide, brown, and alive.
I stared at him. He stared at me.
"Who… are you?" he whispered,