She looked peaceful. Almost like she was dreaming.
I gave Trisha a nod.
She stepped forward with slow, careful movents, holding a small pill between her fingers.
Raising the pill over the woman’s face, she gently opened her mouth and slid the pill inside.
Then, using a technique that helped unconscious patients swallow, she guided the pill down the throat successfully.
It was done.
"Now, let’s wait for more obvious signs of change," said Trisha, eyes fixed on the patient, voice steady.
Zeruel, anwhile, stood frozen beside .
She stared at her mother with trembling eyes, shoulders slightly hunched. Her hand reached out slowly and gripped the fabric of my sleeve—tight and desperate.
She held on like I was the only thing grounding her in that mont.
And I let her.
I didn’t pull away.
I let her hold .
After several hours passed, still... there were no changes.
No movent. No reaction.
Nothing to suggest even the faintest shift.
It wasn’t entirely unexpected. A part of had already braced for this. And yet, in the depths of my chest, I had still clung to the fragile hope that sothing would happen. A twitch of a finger, a shift in her breathing—anything to tell us it was working.
But there was nothing.
Despite the months—no, nearly a year—of painstaking research, despite everything poured into creating that single pill, it seed like it had all amounted to nothing. The silence in the room scread the truth we didn’t want to hear.
When Zeruel finally realized it, her posture visibly collapsed.
Her shoulders slumped down like all the tension had drained from her spine. The slight quiver in her lips, the tightness in her jaw, and the way her eyes sank said everything—she was crushed.
I could see it written all over her face.
It was disappointnt.
It mirrored my own.
This result... it was the very thing I had been dreading.
If this had worked—if this one pill had done what we had believed it could—it would have been revolutionary. It would have shattered the eternal slumber crisis. An illness that had stolen lives across nations, sothing even the most powerful healers and spellcasters couldn’t cure, could’ve finally had a counter.
That was only if it had worked.
But it didn’t.
Still, I took a small breath and told myself one thing: at least there were no visible side effects. That alone was the only silver lining. A bitter one, but still... sothing to hold on to.
Trisha quietly excused herself from the room. Her voice was flat, almost cold—not from anger, but from suppressed sorrow.
She had put in so much work. Hours upon hours of sleepless nights. Tireless effort alongside the best minds we had access to. All of it driven by the belief that they were close—on the verge of a breakthrough.
To watch all of that vanish in silence... it must’ve hurt deeply.
Zeruel, anwhile, said nothing. She didn’t cry. She didn’t rage. She just silently moved to the seat beside her mother’s bed and sat down, her movents slow and heavy.
She reached out, took her mother’s limp hand in hers, and stared at her face in silence.
Her thumb gently brushed across her knuckles.
There was so much she wanted to say, so much she had probably rehearsed in her mind... but all of it got stuck sowhere in her throat. Instead, she just sat there—expression heavy, eyes searching for signs that weren’t there.
"I’ll excuse myself," I said softly, stepping toward the door.
But then—
"Please... stay with for a while," she said, her voice quiet and trembling.
I paused, my hand frozen in mid-reach. The quiet crack in her tone gripped sothing in my chest and made turn back to her.
She wasn’t looking at —her eyes were still locked onto her mother’s face—but the weight of those few words kept rooted in place.
I took a slow breath, turned fully around, and walked back. Without a word, I sat down beside her.
Her mother still lay motionless. Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. The sound of gentle breathing was the only thing in the room, like a faint whisper of life that mocked our efforts.
The pill hadn’t done a thing.
I reached over and placed a hand on Zeruel’s shoulder—
She didn’t flinch. Instead, her hand moved, gripping my opposite shoulder—and then she pulled herself into a hug.
Her arms wrapped tightly around .
It wasn’t desperation. It was sothing deeper—like she needed sothing, soone, to keep her from unraveling.
I didn’t say anything.
I didn’t pull away.
I just let her.
And then... the tremble started.
Her body began to shake in my arms, and a soft, muffled sound escaped her lips—a quiet sob that quickly broke into more.
She clung to harder, burying her face into my shoulder. The warmth of her tears soaked through the fabric.
I gently placed my hand on the back of her head, fingers threading through her hair as I cradled her closer.
I let her cry.
I didn’t try to stop her. Didn’t offer empty words.
Because there was nothing to say.
I sat there in silence, the weight of failure and pain pressing down on both of us.
Then—just barely—I caught sothing in the corner of my eye.
A flicker. A shift.
The faintest creak echoed from the bed. The sound was so subtle that at first, I thought I imagined it. But then, slowly, the sheets rustled... and the mattress dipped slightly from shifting weight.
The figure lying still for so long... was starting to move.
Bit by bit, her upper body rose—slowly, unsteadily—until she was upright.
Her limbs trembled. Her expression was hazy. Her strength was almost nonexistent. And yet—she did not ask for support.
She sat up on her own.
Her eyes fluttered open, cloudy and dazed, searching around the room until they locked onto us.
"...Zeruel?" she asked.
Her voice was strained, dry from disuse, but unmistakably alive. It held emotion.
Zeruel pulled away from instantly, spinning around in disbelief.
Her eyes widened, her mouth parted, and she stared—frozen.
"M-Mom?" she choked out.
Emotion swelled in her voice, threatening to break her entirely. The despair she had buried beneath her skin only monts ago was now morphing into sothing too overwhelming to contain.
Her mother smiled, though it wavered with weakness. "You’ve grown..." she said softly. "How long have I been asleep?"
To her, it must’ve felt like a single night of sleep. A blink. A breath.
In reality... she had been gone for over a year.
"For so long, Mom..." Zeruel said, her voice trembling. "So long that I thought I’d lose you... A-Are you really awake now? T-This isn’t a dream, is it?"
She reached out—cautiously, slowly—as if touching her mother would cause her to disappear.
Her mother responded by raising her hand and gently brushing her fingers across Zeruel’s cheek.
She wiped the tears that stread down without pause, her touch tender and comforting.
"You’ve suffered so much, haven’t you, Zeruel?" she said gently. "You don’t have to worry. I’m awake now. This isn’t a dream."
That was all it took.
Zeruel let out a sound—a strangled sob caught between disbelief and relief—as her body collapsed into her mother’s arms.
Her arms wrapped around her mother’s waist, tightly, desperately, as if afraid letting go would break the spell.
And then... she cried.
Loud, ugly, heartbreaking cries that echoed through the room.
All the pain she had buried. All the hope she had guarded. It ca flooding out in waves.
And she cried... because the impossible had finally beco real.
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