The days that followed were a blur of colors and sounds that Wyne had once thought were lost to her forever.
Within the sterile, white-walled confines of the hospital, the two little girls—each possessing a vastly different moral compass and a conflicting view of the world—set about the business of being friends.
It was a themed existence, a continuous loop of "firsts" that stretched from one day into the next, and then the next, and then the next.
Little Trizha would arrive like a whirlwind, bombarding the quiet room with traditional games from her hometown—loud, frantic things involving clapping, singing, and complex finger patterns.
To Trizha's mock annoyance, Wyne seemed to already know every game she introduced.
Yet, despite the repetition, Wyne found herself constantly caught off guard.
She was surprised by the lightness in her chest, surprised that she was genuinely enjoying herself far more than she ever had with the "fair-weather" friends who had fled at the first sign of her illness.
For the first time in her seven years of life, Wyne felt a bond she never knew she was missing.
The laughs weren't forced to appease her parents, and the smiles weren't a mask for the doctors; they were real.
Even as she grew fond of the golden-haired girl, Wyne's rushed intelligence whispered a truth to her: Trizha had only stumbled into this room because she was a social creature looking for a new audience, someone to share her laughter with.
Wyne knew this, yet she didn't mind.
She allowed herself to be swept up in the current. She knew she shouldn't get attached, given her "withering" status, but she went along with it anyway.
After all, Trizha had unknowingly performed a miracle.
She had motivated Wyne to try. By recklessly pressing her face against a "sick person" without a second thought, Trizha had shattered Wyne's internal logic.
Wyne realized there was no point in giving up when someone else had already decided to share the burden of her existence.
It was an unfair, almost cruel psychological rule to plant in one's own mind—a positive yet strict entrapment—but it made her smile.
***
「Ah. I remember now」
Trizha whispered to herself, the present-day air cold against her skin.
「I remember what happened that day. I understand it all now. Back then, I was disillusioned... I genuinely thought that tragedy in the hall was just a movie in the making. And Wyne... she wasn't actually slow. She just always proclaimed that she was.」
Trizha leaned back, her eyes staring at nothing as the memories shifted.
「Now that I think about it, it was probably her defense mechanism.」
She continued, her voice a hollow rasp.
「A way to cope with people's expectations so she wouldn't have to keep up. Or maybe... maybe it was just her way of trying to keep the friends she finally made, since she had none until I barged into that room. That day, one flower withered, and another bloomed. And just like that day, I am still disillusioned. Even now.」
"I'm sorry, miss, but all the CCTV footage from yesterday only shows you running around the Mirror House… alone." the operator said, their voice tinged with a subtle, ugly hint of disappointment.
The operator leaned back in their swivel chair inside the cramped, dimly lit security booth.
It was clear they had been hoping for something more sensational—an actual child with bleeding wounds to report, something to break the monotony of their shift.
They looked at Trizha with a mixture of boredom and skepticism.
Trizha let out a long, shuddering sigh that seemed to drain the last of the air from her lungs.
The disappointment in her own heart was heavy, a crushing weight of realization.
She was indeed disillusioned; the boy she thought she saw, the drama she thought she witnessed... it was nowhere on the digital record.
She stood before the console, her shadow stretching long and jagged across the floor.
"Uhm... are you sure you weren't, you know, drunk yesterday?" the operator asked, their tone turning condescending. "Because what you're describing is... well, it's surely a delusional thing to imagine. No offense, of course."
"No," Trizha replied, her voice flat and dead. "I wasn't drunk. I was sure there was someone there. A boy. Injured."
The operator snorted softly, glancing at the monitors before looking back at her. "Really? Because if my eyes aren't wrong about this, those massive eye bags tell a different story. You look like you've been on a week-long bender, kid."
"Then look me in the eyes and tell me..." Trizha started, her voice dropping into a low, terrifying register.
The CCTV operator gulped, a bead of sweat tracing a nervous path down their temple.
They tried to meet her gaze, to stare into her eyes as she demanded, but they found themselves unable to maintain the contact.
Instead, their eyes wandered over the wreckage of her face: the deep, dark circles of exhaustion, the puffiness from hours of crying, the hair that looked like it had been shredded by panicked fingers, and a total, haunting lack of the "Golden Girl" cheerfulness she usually projected to the world.
"What makes you think a kid like me..." Trizha asked, her voice trembling with a dormant, tectonic rage, "...drinks?"
The operator remained silent, their mouth suddenly dry.
For the first time, they realized they weren't looking at a spoiled influencer having a tantrum.
They were looking at a human being who had been put through a psychological meat grinder.
They were looking at the exact moment a person realizes the world they believed in was a lie.