The drive to the hospital passed in complete silence. The engine maintained its steady rhythm as the car sped through the nearly empty streets, yet neither Juson nor Yokina noticed the familiar sounds surrounding them. Yokina kept both hands tightly wrapped around the steering wheel, her knuckles pale from the pressure she unconsciously applied. She never once looked away from the road, as though even the smallest distraction might cost her something she could never recover. Beside her, Juson sat stiffly in the passenger seat, unable to stop glancing toward the back seat where Herik lay slumped against the cushion. The child's head rested awkwardly against the window, his breathing faint beneath the unnatural stillness that had settled over him. After everything that had happened inside the bedroom, the absence of flickering lights, strange noises, or impossible movements inside the car should have been reassuring. Instead, the normality felt disturbingly artificial, as though reality itself had chosen to hide whatever had happened rather than explain it.
The hospital finally emerged ahead beneath rows of bright white lights that pierced the darkness like distant beacons. Before the vehicle had completely stopped beneath the emergency entrance, Juson threw the passenger door open and rushed outside. Fear had stripped away every trace of composure he had tried to maintain since leaving the house. His voice cracked as he shouted for help, drawing the attention of nurses and hospital attendants who immediately rushed toward the car with a stretcher. Yokina climbed out moments later, barely remembering to close her own door before following them. Within seconds Herik had been lifted carefully from the back seat and carried through the automatic entrance while Juson followed close behind, refusing to let the stretcher disappear from his sight. Yokina remained only a few steps behind him, struggling to keep pace as they entered a brightly lit emergency treatment room filled with unfamiliar equipment and hurried movement.
The nurses worked with practiced efficiency. Oxygen tubing was connected almost immediately, followed by monitoring leads that clung to Herik's chest and arms. Machines awakened around the bed one after another, filling the room with quiet electronic beeps and the constant hiss of oxygen flowing through the transparent mask now covering the boy's face. Yokina stood motionless near the doorway, watching every movement without fully understanding any of it. The sight of her son surrounded by machines shattered whatever strength she had managed to preserve since leaving the house. Tears rolled freely down her face before she even realized she had begun crying. She instinctively stepped forward, desperate to reach him, but one of the nurses gently blocked her path and spoke with quiet professionalism. "Please wait outside." The words were neither cold nor unkind, yet they left no room for argument. Juson gently placed a hand on Yokina's shoulder and guided her back into the corridor, where she leaned against him almost unconsciously, her entire body trembling beneath the weight of fear she could no longer contain.
For several long moments neither of them spoke. The corridor stretched endlessly in both directions, illuminated by pale fluorescent lights that cast long reflections across the polished floor. Somewhere above them, one of the ceiling bulbs flickered weakly before returning to normal, but neither of them paid it much attention. Yokina finally broke the silence, her voice little more than a whisper. "What happened? Why did he collapse? And... those lights... why were they flickering like that?" Her questions hung heavily between them, demanding answers Juson simply did not possess. He stared through the small glass panel in the treatment room door, watching doctors continue their work around Herik before replying slowly. "That thing..." he murmured almost to himself. "Think about it again." His own words sounded hollow. He wasn't answering her at all. He was speaking to himself, trying desperately to force scattered memories into a pattern that made sense. The basement. The dust. The glowing particles. Herik's skin. None of it belonged in the same world, yet somehow everything pointed toward the same impossible truth.
Time seemed to slow until every passing minute felt like an hour. The corridor remained unnaturally quiet except for distant footsteps and the occasional movement of medical staff passing through nearby wards. Eventually a doctor emerged from the room accompanied by one of the nurses who had helped carry Herik inside. They approached with calm, measured expressions that revealed nothing. "What happened to the boy?" the nurse asked while preparing paperwork. Juson hesitated for the briefest moment before forcing himself to answer. "He... he was playing. Then suddenly he collapsed." The explanation sounded painfully inadequate even to his own ears, but it was all he allowed himself to say. The doctor nodded thoughtfully without challenging the statement. "We'll monitor his brain activity," he replied before disappearing back inside, leaving the two of them once again alone with nothing but uncertainty and silence.
Another stretch of anxious waiting followed before the doctor returned. This time Yokina rose immediately from her seat before he had fully reached them. Her eyes searched his face desperately, hoping to find reassurance before he even spoke. The doctor removed his gloves and offered the closest thing to comforting news he could. "He's stable," he said quietly. "But he's still unconscious." Yokina swallowed hard before asking the only question that mattered to her. "Why?" The doctor paused briefly, choosing his words carefully. "It appears to be a possible lack of oxygen reaching the brain." The explanation sounded clinical, reasonable, and complete. Yet as Juson listened, something inside him refused to accept it. Oxygen could explain unconsciousness. It could explain weakness. But it could not explain flickering lights, spinning clocks, glowing eyes, or the strange silence that had swallowed their house. The doctor had given them an answer. It simply wasn't the answer either of them truly needed.