Day 7.
Twelve doctors.
Four collapsed nurses.
Nineteen fever-struck children.
One estate bleeding at the seams.
(Day Seven)
The sickness came like a whisper.
It bloomed in the marrow of the children—quiet fevers, dry lips, small hands gone too still.
By dawn, seven had collapsed.
By noon, half the staff couldn't breathe.
Zeyla stood in the middle of it all like a woman carved from dusk and duty. She had not changed her clothes in three days. She had not slept in six.
Twelve doctors moved through the orphanage like ants through ash—silently, urgently, and without direction. None of them had names anymore. Only roles. Only gloves.
One of them, younger than the rest, whispered over a child's bed, "Vitals are stable. But the EEG is chaotic. It's as if she's... dreaming through something."
Another replied, "They're all dreaming. Together."
Zeyla's voice came from behind, low and bitter:
"Then pray they don't wake up screaming."
The doctors turned. She was already gone, clipboard clenched like a weapon, her boots tracking blood between floorboards.
They were keeping this hell secret.
Because Noor was not here to explain.
---
11:06 a.m. — The Boiling Point
The kitchen was filled with steam and the heavy silence of exhaustion. Herbs boiled on the stove—old remedies. Witchcraft, one doctor called it. But no one laughed.
Maya stood over the counter, her back to Zeyla, shoulders tight. Her hands shook as she chopped ginger that no one would eat.
"I saw Anna cough blood," she said.
Zeyla didn't answer.
"She smiled yesterday."
Still no answer.
"She's eight, Zeyla."
Zeyla's voice came soft, slow:
"Do you think I don't count them?"
Maya turned. "You don't speak. You don't feel anything. You're bleeding through your nose and lying to everyone. For what? For a woman who abandoned us?"
Zeyla met her gaze. Something ancient sat behind her eyes.
"Watch your mouth."
"I'm tired of worshipping a myth."
"Then leave."
"I should."
"Then go."
Maya didn't move.
Zeyla stepped forward, eyes bright with restrained violence.
"You think Noor was a miracle wrapped in linen? You weren't here when she was nothing but blood and hunger and a prayer scribbled on the inside of a church wall."
Maya's voice cracked. "She's not here now."
Zeyla smiled. But it wasn't kind.
"She never left. You're just too loud to hear her anymore."
---
12:40 p.m. — The Mirror
The old supply room held no mirrors anymore, but Zeyla had found one in a closet behind the linens. She stood before it now, trembling.
Her nose bled again.
It wasn't the first time.
She didn't panic. She tilted her head back, tore Noor's old handkerchief from her pocket, and pressed it to her face.
She whispered into the cloth:
"Don't come back if you mean to offer mercy. Come only if you intend to suffer beside us."
Outside the room, footsteps passed. Zeyla didn't move.
Inside, the blood on her lips made her look like she'd bitten her tongue on the truth.
---
1:15 p.m. — One of the Children Wakes
A girl no older than five stirred in her fever.
"Miss Zeyla…"
Zeyla knelt beside her.
"I dreamed of mother Noor."
Zeyla's heart stopped.
"She said she was sorry."
Zeyla brushed the child's sweat-matted hair back. Her hands were steady. Her voice, not.
"What was she sorry for?"
"She said the stars were her fault."
The child blinked. "She said we have to wait. Until they fall."
Zeyla kissed her forehead and stood.
"Then I'll hold the sky up until they do."
2:00 p.m.
The rain began to fall harder—thick as oil.
Somewhere beyond the main hall, in a side office once used for storing ledgers, Doctor Mike dialed a number he should never have remembered.
"Emergency Services. You're live."
He spoke quickly, low. "Unidentified viral outbreak in a private estate. High fevers. Catatonic symptoms in minors. Possible airborne vector. Location—"
The door creaked behind him.
He froze.
Zeyla stood there, soaked from the storm, water dripping from her hair like melted shadow.
She said nothing.
He turned slowly. His phone still in his hand. The voice on the other end repeating:
"Hello? Sir? Please confirm the coordinates."
She walked in. Closed the door behind her.
He swallowed. "I had to. It's not right. It's madness. We don't even know what it is. And you—your staff—you're hiding the bodies. The press will know. The world must know."
Zeyla stepped closer.
She looked at the phone. Then at him.
"You were warned."
"I'm trying to help. These children—"
She didn't let him finish.
The scalpel came from her sleeve.
A single movement—across the throat.
Like pulling a weed from sacred soil.
He gasped once. Slid down the wall. Clutching at air.
His phone hit the floor and skidded under the desk.
Zeyla stood over him. Watching.
"This house doesn't belong to the world," she whispered.
"It belongs to her. And she does not like intrusions."
He gurgled something. She pressed two fingers to his lips gently.
"Shh. Die with dignity."
---
4:11 p.m. —
One of the new nurses asked, "Where's Doctor Mike?"
Zeyla didn't look up from her tray of medication.
"Couldn't handle the pressure ,perhaps."
The nurse nodded and Moved on.
No one asked again.
( 2:22 a.m.)
The hall was unnaturally quiet.
Zeyla moved through the corridor, hand still damp from blood. But her face was dry. Her eyes, darker than before.
She passed a row of cots. All the children were asleep.
But one—was not breathing.
She stopped. Knelt beside the boy.
His lips were slightly parted, eyes half-open. But there was no life in him.
She leaned closer. Fingers on his throat.
No pulse.
And yet—
His lips moved.
Barely. As if remembering speech.
"Miss Zeyla…"
Her heart froze.
"You shouldn't have killed him."
The child's eyes turned to her. They were no longer his.
Pupils like holes in the veil of the world.
"She was the seal," the boy whispered.
"And now the house is open."
Zeyla stood slowly, her hands shaking.
The boy sat up, bones creaking. He smiled.
"We've been waiting. So patiently. So long."
"And now," the voice whispered—not from his throat, but from the shadows behind the cot—
"you bleed in her place."
The candles lining the hallway snapped out one by one.
A low, rattling breath echoed through the corridor. Something moved along the ceiling.
She only whispered:
"Noor… I am sorry."
The child's body crumpled backward.
But the shadow behind him did not fall.
It stepped forward. Tall. Pale. Eyes sewn shut. Its ribs open like a cage.
"The god is gone," it rasped, in a thousand child-voices layered atop each other.
"So the debt returns to us."
And then—the wall behind Zeyla began to bleed.
Black. Thick. Cold.
Zeyla reached for her knife.
It tilted its head, as if amused.
"Will you fight for her… even now?"
Zeyla's breath was ragged.
"Always."
---
3:33 a.m. –
Machines whispered to themselves in dim green light.
The rain tapped the windows, soft as weeping fingers.
Yilan slept in the chair beside him, face pale, arms folded tight around herself.
For six days, he hadn't stirred.
Until now.
His lashes fluttered.
Golden. Too long.
Then—
His eyes opened.
Silver.
Like moonlight reflected in water too deep to name.
Just that gaze, staring at the ceiling.
---
Yilan's body jerked awake.
She blinked hard. For a moment, she didn't trust what she saw.
But it was real.
"Sanlang…?"
Her voice was broken glass.
She reached for him, heart shattering with every second.
"Sanlang, it's me—I'm here. You're awake. You're really—"
She cupped his cheek, trembling. "I thought I —please, say something—"
He turned to her.
Slowly.
His silver eyes landed on her face.
"Noor."
One word. Barely sound.
Yilan froze.
The syllable sank like stone into her gut.
"She's not here," she whispered.
His gaze drifted past her. Through her.
To the window. To the clouds.
"You're safe," she murmured. "I swear. We're ___You're back."
---
A knock shattered the moment.
A guard stepped in, breathless.
"Miss Yilan. I'm sorry. The press... they're breaching outer perimeter."
Yilan turned, disoriented.
"The press?"
"They've got drones in the east wing. They know he's awake. Some are shouting about the photos."
Her stomach clenched. The scandal—
That damned leak. Those cursed, twisted photos of Sanlang and that co-actress—Mei Lin.
"They think she's coming to visit," the guard continued. "They're calling it a 'forbidden romance'."
"It was a set-up," Yilan snapped. "She drugged him. That night wasn't real."
The guard looked apologetic. "They don't care."
"Of course they don't."
She turned back to Sanlang.
He hadn't moved.
Still staring. Still silent.
"I'll be back," she whispered, brushing her lips against his forehead. "Don't move. I mean it."
He blinked once.
And said nothing.
---
The lobby boiled with lights and voices.
Cameras flashing like lightning.
"IS SANLANG CONSCIOUS?"
"DOES HE LOVE MEI LIN?"
"IS HE GOING TO THE PREMIERE?"
"DID HE TRY TO END HIS LIFE?!"
Yilan stepped out with a straight back.
Every light felt like fire on her skin.
Yilan stepped out with a straight back.
Every light felt like fire on her skin.
"No comment," she said.
"IS THE RUMOR TRUE? WAS SHE PREGNANT?"
Yilan turned slowly, her voice ice:
"Please leave."
The crowd grew louder.
She signed the emergency lockdown notice.
"No one enters from here any forward," she told the guards. "No one. Especially not her."
"What about Mei Lin?" the nurse asked softly.
Yilan's lips curled.
She will have what she wanted soon enough,Yilan hissed.
---
The hallway to Room 12C stretched long and wrong.
Yilan walked faster.
The ache in her chest blooming again.
She opened the door.
And froze.
Monitors silent.
IV line disconnected.
The window was slightly open.
She dropped the file from her hand.
"Sanlang…?"
She stepped inside, heart pounding.
Something glinted on the pillow.
She lifted it—
A black feather.
Drawn in blood across the wall:
The silver does not sleep.
---
The street outside the hospital had darkened.
Sanlang walked barefoot.
Hospital gown swept by wind.
No shoes. No sound.
Eyes half-lidded.
Silver.
The city lights did not touch him.
Someone saw him.
A child.
The boy pointed, whispered to his mother:
"Mama. That man's crying stars."
---
And somewhere, far from them all,
Noor stirred in the dark—
Eyes still closed.
A single word forming on her lips:
"Kang…"
___________
Zeyla's hand tightened on the dagger.
It was instinct now — the last gesture of a woman who'd spent seven days standing between death and memory.
The wind screamed.
And the estate doors blew open — wide, violent, final.
Zeyla didn't flinch.
Not until the presence arrived behind her.
Her spine locked. Her lungs refused air.
And then—
The shadows hissed. All of them.
They backed away like dogs scenting fire.
Her voice cracked, no louder than a breath:
"...Sanlang?"
He stepped forward.
The temperature dropped.
Her knees buckled.
Still she raised the dagger.
He walked past her. Not around — over.
His foot brushed her shoulder as she fell.
She gasped, saw silver eyes in a gold-lashed face.
And then—
a voice from the shadows ___
"The seal is broken. You do not belong."
Sanlang turned his head slightly.
The shadow was unmade.
Split down the middle.
Zeyla watched, barely clinging to breath.
He paused at Noor's door. One hand lifted—
And stopped.
Just stood there.
Her last thought before darkness took her was a memory of Noor's voice, whispering:
"If he ever comes back…
Let the dead hide."