Episode 20: The Silent Hours
The hospital had its own language, one that Elara was still learning to understand. The sharp beeps of monitors, the rhythmic sigh of the oxygen machine, the shuffle of nurses' shoes on the polished floor—it was a vocabulary of sounds that translated into fragility, urgency, and survival. She lay in her bed, wrapped in the stiffness of starched white sheets, eyes drifting toward the ceiling where pale light spilled from fluorescent tubes. Her body felt heavier than it ever had before, every limb weighed down as if by invisible chains. Even the act of breathing seemed measured, deliberate, and exhausting.
She thought about how, only weeks ago, she could walk through her neighborhood, feel the sun warm against her skin, and laugh without worrying about how much air filled her lungs. Now, every breath was monitored, displayed as glowing green lines on the machine beside her bed. Her world had shrunk to four walls and the endless ticking of time that stretched too slow, then too fast, then too slow again.
But what cut deeper than the wires on her wrist or the ache in her veins was the silence of her sister's absence. Mira was not here. She had not come with her. She had not sat beside her bed, had not brushed her hair back from her forehead, had not whispered comfort when the nights grew unbearable. No—Mira was at home, far away, wrapped in her own bubble of distraction.
And that hurt.
Elara closed her eyes against the sting of tears, but the images still came. Mira's bent head glowing in the light of her phone screen, fingers scrolling endlessly across feeds that had nothing to do with the suffering here. She imagined her sister yawning in her room, perhaps sipping a soda, perhaps laughing at a meme, oblivious—or worse, indifferent—to the weight Elara carried alone in this sterile space. The thought gnawed at her, filling the hours with a hollow ache.
The silence pressed against her chest. She tried to shift her position, wincing at the stiffness in her muscles. She could hear faint footsteps outside, the occasional clink of trays as nurses moved about their duties, but in her room there was only the mechanical music of survival. She had grown used to the way night swallowed sound here, how the world outside seemed so far away, unreachable. Yet tonight, the silence seemed heavier, darker, as though the walls themselves had thickened to trap her inside.
Elara tried to distract herself the way Mira might have done—by looking at the screen of her hospital-issued tablet. It was supposed to help patients feel connected, offering simple apps, a clock, access to basic calls. But when she pressed the screen, its glow only emphasized the emptiness. Her fingers trembled, and she set it aside, turning instead toward the window.
The view outside showed the city at a distance—blurred lights glowing faintly, hints of life she was too weak to join. She could imagine people walking on sidewalks, lovers arguing and making up, families gathering for dinner, students rushing with backpacks. Life moved on, fast and careless, while her own was slowed to the crawl of monitors and the drip of IV fluids.
And Mira was there, part of that other world.
She could almost picture her sister's room—clothes strewn across the chair, headphones tangled in knots, the faint blue glow of the phone screen painting Mira's face in cold light. Perhaps Mira was messaging a friend, laughing into the quiet of the night, completely unaware of the sterile loneliness consuming Elara's hours. The thought twisted inside her, painful in ways even the needles could not compare.
The hours stretched. Nurses entered, checked her pulse, murmured reassurances, then left again, their presence too brief to break the loneliness. A tray of food came—lukewarm soup, a piece of bread, a cup of water. Elara tried to lift the spoon, but her hand shook, and after a few mouthfuls, she gave up. The tray sat abandoned, a reminder of her weakness.
The silence grew thicker.
Elara turned toward the small clock on the wall. It ticked with cruel slowness. Every second mocked her with its refusal to move faster. She thought about calling Mira. She even reached for the tablet again, fingers hovering above the contact screen. But what would she say? That she was scared? That she needed her? That she felt abandoned? The words lodged in her throat, unspeakable, because a part of her feared Mira would not answer—or worse, would answer distractedly, half-listening, while still scrolling.
That fear kept her silent.
The night deepened. Outside, sirens wailed briefly, cutting through the distance, then faded again. The city lived, roared, thrived, while she lay motionless. Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell, each breath louder in her ears than the hum of machines. She closed her eyes, imagining that maybe, if she tried hard enough, she could return to those days before the illness, before the hospital, before the silence. She could almost hear Mira laughing, see her tossing a pillow across the room, both of them giggling until their sides hurt. The memory was sharp, vivid, and cruel in its contrast.
The twist came not from the hospital itself, but from within her mind.
Because in that long silence, Elara realized something bitter—that Mira's absence was not just physical. It was emotional, too. Mira had already turned away, drawn deeper into her own world of distractions, leaving Elara to carry her fear alone. The bond they once had felt frayed, slipping strand by strand, as though no machine could revive it.
Elara's heart clenched at the thought. The loneliness shifted into anger, then back into sorrow, a pendulum swinging endlessly inside her chest. She wished she could hate her sister, wished she could tell herself Mira was cruel. But she couldn't. Because underneath the disappointment, beneath the isolation, she still loved her. She still longed for her presence, her voice, her comfort.
The hours passed in that battle of contradictions—love and anger, need and resentment, fear and fragile hope. And the silence never broke.
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Author's Note 🖤 – The Silent Hours (Rewritten)
In this version, the focus is entirely on Elara's perspective: her loneliness, her slow battle against silence, and her emotional twisting realization that Mira is absent—physically and emotionally. The pacing is deliberately slow, stretching every hour into something heavy and suffocating, showing how hospital time bends. The twist lies in Elara's growing awareness: her sister is slipping away from her, not just in distance, but in heart.