The call came without urgency.
That was the strange part.
No warning tone. No repeated ringing. Just a single vibration against the table, as if the phone itself wasn't sure it should interrupt him.
Elias watched it light up.
He sensed a foreboding. Something was wrong. No on would call this early in the morning.
Unknown number.
He let it ring once. Twice.
Then he answered.
"Elias Rowan?" the voice asked.
It wasn't rushed. It wasn't gentle either. It carried the kind of calm that only existed when someone had already accepted the weight of what they were about to say.
"Yes."
"This is St. Vincent's. We've been reviewing some… discrepancies."
Discrepancies.
Elias frowned. "In what?"
"In your recent imaging," the voice replied. "And blood markers. There are patterns we don't like ignoring."
Silence stretched.
"How soon?" Elias asked.
Another pause. Longer now. Measured.
"Sooner than we anticipated," the voice said. "Enough that we'd like you here today. Not as an emergency. Just… not something to delay."
Elias exhaled slowly.
"Is this about changes?" he asked.
"Yes."
They didn't say more.
They didn't need to.
After the call ended, Elias sat very still, as if movement might tip something irreversibly out of balance. His eyes drifted to the notebook on his nightstand.
One Hundred.
He didn't open it.
The phone lit up. Low battery warning. He could see Mara typing. Wanted to reply. Picked it up, but it was too late. Just like how it was always too late for him. His phone shut down.
Fate even denied this final chance. He sighed. Freshened up a little and left the house.
He didn't turn his phone back on. What's the use?
The hospital felt louder than usual.
Not with sound, but with presence. Footsteps overlapping. Voices bleeding into one another. A thousand more private urgencies colliding under fluorescent lights.
Elias stood at the registration line, shoulders slightly hunched, fingers clenched around his ID. His heart beat unevenly, like it was skipping steps.
That was when he heard her voice.
He didn't see her.
He didn't need to.
Mara's voice carried in a very specific way. Calm, but warm. Steady, but human. The kind of voice people trusted without realizing why.
"She'll need her medication adjusted," Mara was saying somewhere to his left. "She's compensating, but barely."
Another voice responded, quieter. "You look like hell, Mara. Rough shift?"
Mara exhaled, the sound unmistakable even without seeing her. "Yeah. And-" She stopped herself, then added lightly, "Never mind. Personal stuff."
Elias's stomach tightened.
They moved him forward in the line.
He could still hear her. Missed something her friend said but can still hear her.
"I don't know," Mara continued, her tone casual but brittle underneath. "I thought something was starting. And then he just… vanished."
A small laugh followed. Not amused. Defensive. Hurt.
"Guess I misread it," she said. "Wouldn't be the first time."
The clerk asked Elias a question.
He didn't answer.
"Sir?"
He tried to speak.
Nothing happened.
At first, he thought he hadn't pushed hard enough. He tried again. His jaw moved, but the sound never arrived. His tongue felt thick, foreign, like it no longer belonged to him.
His fingers loosened.
The ID slipped from his hand and hit the counter with a soft, humiliating sound.
"I—" Elias tried.
Nothing.
The room tilted gently, not violently. Like the world was leaning away from him.
Somewhere nearby, Mara laughed quietly at something else, already moving on, already returning to the rhythm of her work.
Elias never saw her.
He only heard her footsteps fade.
He did not know how he moved after that.
The doctor's office was smaller than he expected.
Too small for news this heavy.
Dr. Hargreaves sat across from him, hands folded, expression unreadable but tired in a way that suggested honesty.
"Elias," she said, "can you tell me what you're feeling right now?"
He opened his mouth. Was about to speak.
Silence.
His eyes widened, panic flashing briefly before he forced it down. He lifted a hand, trying to gesture.
His fingers twitched - a ghost of a gesture. If you could even call it that.
Dr. Hargreaves straightened. Her hunched shoulders went rigid.
"When did this start?" she asked, already standing.
Elias blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Even that became heavy for him.
"Okay," she said calmly, pressing a red button on the wall. "Stay with me."
The paralysis spread without drama. No pain. No warning. Just absence. Like parts of him were being switched off one by one.
"Neurological involvement," she murmured to the nurse who rushed in. "Acute onset. Prepare for admission."
Elias wanted to scream.
Wanted to say her name.
Wanted to explain that he hadn't disappeared because he didn't care. That he'd disappeared because he cared too much.
But his body had decided something for him.
Silence was no longer a choice.
They moved him through corridors he recognized only by sound now. Even sight became heavy. The squeak of wheels. The echo of announcements. The soft urgency in voices that tried not to sound urgent.
At one point, someone passed nearby carrying a tray of medications.
Mara's voice drifted again, closer this time.
"Room twelve needs their antibiotics," she said. "And can someone check on the new admission in ICU once he's settled?"
ICU.
The word landed like a verdict.
Elias lay there, eyes open, aware, trapped inside a body that refused to advocate for him.
She was here.
Working.
Caring.
Talking about a man who had hurt her without knowing he was listening.
Without knowing he was breathing carefully just a few walls away.
As they turned a corner, her voice disappeared again, swallowed by distance and duty.
By the time they wheeled Elias into the ICU, the lights above him blurred into long white streaks.
Sedation followed soon after.
As the world dimmed, the last thought he held onto was simple and devastating:
Love had finally arrived.
And his body had answered by locking him out of it.
How cruel.
How painful.