The rain had come before dawn.
Cold, steady, indifferent — like the world didn't notice what had been taken.
Somewhere deep in the woods, miles from any paved road, an old truck sputtered to a stop outside a crumbling clinic. The driver — a bent old man with yellowed eyes and hands like bark — climbed out without a word. He walked around to the back and flung open the rusted door.
Inside, she lay still, wrapped in a blood-soaked bedsheet.
Barely breathing.
Face bruised, lips split.
One eye swollen shut.
Belly torn.
Skin mottled with fingerprints.
Hair matted to her scalp like wet silk.
But she was alive.
Barely.
The old man stared down at her, muttering to himself. "Didn't think you'd make it this far, girl."
He didn't ask her name. She hadn't spoken a word since he found her crawling, naked and bleeding, on the forest edge two nights ago.
He'd seen wolves in better shape.
Still… something in her eyes — the one eye that could open — kept him from turning away. Something ancient. Something waiting.
Inside the clinic, the nurse screamed when she saw the body on the stretcher.
"She's dead!"
"No," the old man rasped. "Worse."
---
They fought to keep her heart beating.
They stitched. Pumped. Cut. Burned. Rebuilt.
She flatlined twice.
The baby was gone.
The internal bleeding nearly took her too.
Her womb would never hold life again.
But she refused to die.
---
For three months, she didn't speak.
The clinic registered her as Jane Doe #237.
They fed her through tubes. Bathed her in silence. Whispered prayers around her body like she was a cursed relic.
But every night, when the nurses left the room… her one good eye stared up at the ceiling, unblinking.
Awake.
Alive.
Listening.
---
On the 99th day, she sat up.
No one saw her do it.
One moment she was still.
The next, upright — spine straight, shoulders square, gaze empty.
She stood.
Her legs trembled like a newborn deer, but she didn't fall.
She walked barefoot across the cold tile to the mirror above the sink. Her reflection startled her.
No — not because of the bruises.
Not because of the scars.
But because of the quiet in her face.
There was no grief.
No tears.
No trembling lip.
Just… silence.
The kind of silence that comes before a storm breaks a kingdom.
She stared at herself.
Touched the bruises.
Pressed her fingers against the shattered parts of her ribs.
And whispered her name — the one they tried to erase.
"Nyx."
---
By dawn, she was gone.
Left the clinic without a sound.
No bags. No shoes. Just a red ribbon tied around her wrist — frayed, soaked in blood, still clinging to her like a promise.
The old man found the empty bed and smiled without surprise.
"She's awake," he muttered. "Now the world's gonna bleed.