The days that followed dissolved into a monochrome blur of pain and forced inactivity. Mailah became a ghost in the estate, a prisoner of her own anatomy. Her leg, once a source of strength, was now a constant, throbbing reminder of the limits of her body. Dr. Morrison became the arbiter of her world—the only person who entered the room, the only person who spoke, and the only person who knew the secrets of the house.
He was meticulous. He checked her dressings with the dispassionate focus of a watchmaker. He monitored her temperature, her heart rate, and her hydration levels, always noting the data in a small, black notebook that felt like a ledger of her failure.
"The bone is knitting," he remarked one afternoon, his eyes fixed on the skin stretched taut over the newly set fracture. "Slowly. It is a biological marvel, given the trauma you subjected it to in the foyer."
