Morrigan stood outside the ICU room, her gaze fixed on Kazuo's still form through the glass. The pale hospital sheets swallowed his thin frame, wires and tubes snaking from his arms and chest to the machines around him. Their soft hum filled the sterile air, but all she could hear was the weight of silence pressing on her ears. She hadn't moved for nearly an hour, her arms crossed over her chest, nails digging into her sleeves.
It didn't make any sense. How had the patrol team even found him? And where? A thousand questions churned in her mind, but they didn't matter now—not really. What mattered was that Kazuo was here, alive, though barely. Yet as she watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, she couldn't shake the knot that had twisted itself in her stomach since he had been brought in. A full day had passed—maybe longer—and still, he hadn't woken up.
