I sit on the hospital bed, my hands folded in my lap, my gaze fixed on the pale wall in front of me. The nurse works beside me with practiced gentleness, her fingers cool against my skin as she removes the IV tape, pulling it away in one slow, careful motion.
The needle slips out, and I feel nothing—not the small sting, not the pressure. Just a hollow emptiness where sensation should be.
She presses a cotton pad against the tiny wound, holding it there for a moment before securing it with a strip of medical tape. Her movements are rhythmic, soothing, the kind of routine she's performed a thousand times before. But nothing about this feels routine to me.
My face is blank.
You're turning into a Beta.
The doctor's words circle in my mind like restless birds, never landing, their shadows passing over me again and again.
Is it true?
Will I really lose my peach blossom scent—the one thing that marks me, that connects me to Deniz in a way words never could?
