Hospitals were quiet in a strange kind of way.
Not the peaceful quiet of a park or a bedroom at night, but a sterile, heavy silence. Machines hummed faintly. Monitors beeped. Nurses whispered as they moved between rooms like ghosts. The walls were pale, the floors too clean, and everything smelled like something had just been wiped.
Isaac had been there for four days.
The first day was a blur of painkillers, questions, and sleep. The second brought more clarity—doctors checking for signs of memory loss, the nurse helping him sit up, Elaine fussing over his pillows. By the third day, he was allowed to shuffle slowly down the hallway with help, his steps wobbly but stronger than he expected.
Now, on the fourth evening, he sat up in bed, legs under the blanket, a half-finished jelly cup on the table beside him. The light outside had turned golden-orange, slanting in through the blinds and casting lines across the linoleum floor.
A book rested in his lap, unopened.
He hadn't really felt like reading.
He'd spent most of the day thinking.
Not about football, or school, or the other kids from the park. Not even about the hospital food or the endless questions from doctors.
He'd been thinking about that moment.
The crossing.
The car.
And the wind.
Every time he replayed the memory, it got sharper. At first, he wasn't sure if he'd imagined it. But it hadn't been a gust. It hadn't come from any direction he could trace. There had been no time for natural causes.
It felt... directed.
Deliberate.
Like something moved him.
His hand drifted to the back of his head, brushing the bandage. It didn't hurt as much anymore—just a dull ache when he stood up too fast.
He leaned back against the pillows, frowning.
"There's no way that was normal," he muttered.
He couldn't let it go.
So over the next few days, he tested it—quietly, carefully, inside his mind.
He remembered how he'd felt just before the accident: frozen, panicked, trapped in the middle of the road like a deer in headlights. The kind of fear that short-circuits your body. It wasn't logical. It was raw.
And then the wind had come.
Not from the sides. Not from behind. From nowhere.
And it had pushed him—as if fear itself had triggered it.
That was when a thought began to take root.
A quiet, strange idea.
What if that wind wasn't a freak occurrence?
What if it was something… in him?
Not supernatural, exactly. But reflexive. Like an instinct. Something buried deep. Something that only appeared when his emotions reached a breaking point.
An emotional surge. An adrenaline trigger.
A self-defense mechanism.
He didn't say it out loud. Not even to himself. It was just a thread he tugged at quietly during the quiet hours between meals and check-ups.
On the fifth day, when no one was around, he tried something.
He closed his eyes, focused on his breath, and thought about that moment—the car, the panic, the certainty that he was going to die. He forced his mind back there, step by step.
His chest tightened. His hands curled into fists beneath the blanket.
His heart began to race.
And then…
Nothing.
No gust. No invisible shove.
But for a second—just a split-second—he thought he felt the air around him shift. Like a pressure drop, subtle and brief. The room suddenly felt too still, like the moment before a storm.
Then it was gone.
Isaac opened his eyes slowly. The ceiling tiles looked the same. The IV bag still dripped quietly beside him. The window blinds hadn't moved.
But something had happened. He was sure of it.
It wasn't enough to call it proof. But it wasn't nothing.
Later that night, after Elaine had kissed his forehead and left with Alan, Isaac stared at the ceiling, eyes wide open.
He thought back again—back to his past life.
Seventeen years old.
Alone, mostly. Tired all the time. Buried under a blanket of apathy and endless scrolling.
He hadn't been a bad kid. Just lost. Disconnected. School had taught him how to label diagrams, how to solve equations—but not how to live. Not how to work. Not how to build anything. It all felt like noise.
So he quit.
Dropped out.
Tried to find his own way, but mostly just... drifted. Phone in hand. Head in the clouds.
When he thought about it now, it made him feel older than nine. Not wiser, necessarily. Just more worn.
He'd burned out before he'd even started.
And now, somehow, here he was—given another life.
He didn't know why. He didn't know how. No higher power had spoken to him. No light in the sky. Just… this strange reset button the universe had hit.
And whatever strange energy had knocked him out of the way of that car—it was a sign.
Something in this life wasn't normal.
But it hadn't come with rules. No guidebook. No magical transformation scene.
Just this feeling that something inside him wasn't quite like it used to be.
By the sixth day, the bruises had faded. His body moved more easily. His head hurt less. By the time the doctor told him he could leave the next morning, he almost felt human again.
"You'll probably feel some lingering headaches," the doctor said as she scribbled in his chart. "But overall, you're healing well. We'll do one last scan tomorrow and you're free to go."
Isaac nodded.
He was ready.
But also—uneasy.
He'd spent a week in this quiet bubble, thinking, sorting, feeling. Once he walked out of the hospital doors, real life would start again. School. Homework. Routine.
Only… he wasn't the same boy who'd left that morning for football in the park.
On the seventh morning, as he dressed in his jeans and jumper, Isaac caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.
His face was the same: round, pale, nine years old. Brown eyes. A mop of unbrushed hair.
But he saw it now. The tension in his jaw. The way his eyes didn't wander like a child's did. They were focused.
Too focused.
Like someone who had lived longer than nine years.
He looked away quickly.
Alan and Elaine picked him up just before noon. Elaine cried—again. Alan offered him a rare, one-armed hug that smelled like mint gum and old wool.
They walked out into the sun. Spring had fully arrived. The pavement was warm. A light breeze rustled the trees near the car park.
Isaac stood there a moment, staring up at the sky.
He felt the wind brush against his cheek.
Normal wind. Random. Harmless.
But he couldn't shake the feeling.
Something inside him had moved that day. Something had acted.
And it wasn't gone.
It was still there.
Waiting.
Watching.
Dormant… for now.
End of Chapter 3