Chapter 82 No City, No Name
Evie:
Somewhere that is not Silverbourne.
Somewhere where no one is looking.
I wake because my body decides it’s time. From the endless darkness and blue horizons I had been venturing into for I dont know how long, something or someone pulls me out
Not because of pain. Not because of fear. Just a shallow, stubborn awareness that pushes me upward, like surfacing from water I didn’t know I was in.
The ceiling above me is unfamiliar. Not hospital-white. Not dark enough to be night. Wood, maybe. Uneven.
There’s a faint crack running from one corner to the other, filled in once and ignored since.
I blink. My eyes sting, then settle.
Breathing hurts.
Not enough to make me panic. It’s the dull ache of something that healed badly or too fast or without enough care. Like my ribs don’t quite remember where they’re supposed to sit.
I don’t move right away. I’ve learned that much already.
Moving comes with consequences.
There’s weight on my left side. Bandages. Old ones. Clean, but not new. They smell faintly of antiseptic and something herbal underneath it.
Whoever wrapped them knew what they were doing, but not enough to make it disappear.
I catalog sensations instead of asking questions.
My mouth is dry.
My throat sore.
My right hand tingles, pins-and-needles sharp, then fades.
I’m lying on something narrow but padded. A cot, maybe. The fabric beneath me is worn thin, soft from repeated washing. The kind of thing people keep because it still works.
That thought lands strangely.
People.
I am not alone here.
The room is quiet, but not empty. I can hear movement somewhere beyond the wall. Footsteps. Slow. Purposeful. Someone opening a drawer. Someone cutting the vegetables in the kitchen.
I close my eyes again, not because I’m tired, but because staying awake feels like too much of a declaration.
Time slips sideways.
When I open them again, the light has shifted. Softer now. Late afternoon, maybe. Or morning. I don’t know. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, and the realization doesn’t scare me the way it probably should.
Fear requires energy.
I don’t have much of that yet.
A woman enters the room without knocking.
She’s older than me. Her hair is pulled back in a way that suggests she doesn’t expect compliments. She wears simple clothes, clean and practical. There’s a faint scar along her forearm that looks healed enough to be forgotten.
She doesn’t react to the fact that I’m awake.
She simply adjusts the lamp, lowers it slightly, and sets a glass of water within reach.
“Slow,” she says. Not unkindly. Not gently either. Just factual.
I swallow. My voice feels like something I haven’t used in a long time.
“How long?” I ask.
She looks at me then. Really looks.
“Long enough,” she says.
That’s the only answer I get.
She helps me drink. I hate how weak my grip is, how my fingers shake around the glass. She pretends not to notice. Or maybe she genuinely doesn’t care.
Afterward, she checks the bandages without ceremony. Her hands are efficient. She doesn’t apologize when it hurts. She doesn’t warn me before it does.
I appreciate that.
“You shouldn’t talk much yet,” she says. “Rest if you can.”
I nod.
She leaves as quietly as she came.
I stare at the ceiling again.
Long enough.
That phrase repeats in my head, not as a question, but as a boundary.
When I try to think backward, my mind resists. Not blank, exactly. More like… cluttered. Disordered. Images float up without sequence or meaning.
A hallway.
Paper.
A voice saying my name in a way that felt wrong.
My name.
I try to say it silently.
It doesn’t fit.
It’s like pressing on a bruise I didn’t know was there. The sound of it feels sharp, misplaced. I let it go.
Maybe later.
My body remembers things my mind doesn’t.
When I shift, my left side tightens protectively. When I breathe too deeply, my chest protests. My legs feel heavier than they should, like I haven’t walked properly in a long time.
That knowledge arrives without memory attached to it.
I don’t know what happened to me.
I know something did.
That’s enough for now.
Food appears eventually. Soup. Warm. Simple. Someone sits nearby while I eat, not watching me, but not leaving either. A presence meant to discourage questions.
I don’t ask any.
After, I sleep again.
Or something like sleep.
Dreams come and go without structure. Sounds bleed into them. Footsteps. A door opening. A low murmur of voices I don’t recognize.
Once, I wake suddenly, heart racing, muscles tensed for a danger I can’t place.
Nothing happens.
The ceiling stays the same.
The crack doesn’t move.
I calm myself the way someone must have taught me once, slow breathing, attention narrowed to what’s real.
Injury.
Shelter.
Not alone.
That last part surprises me.
When I’m stronger, they help me sit up.
When I’m stronger still, they help me stand.
The first time my feet touch the floor, I nearly collapse. The woman from before steadies me without comment.
“Easy,” she says. “You’re here. That’s enough.”
Here.
The word means nothing to me.
But it’s not threatening.
I’m shown a small washroom. A mirror.
I avoid looking at myself until I’m forced to.
My face is thinner than I expect. Pale. A faint bruise still shadows my jaw. My eyes look too large, too alert for the rest of me.
I don’t recognize the person staring back.
That should bother me.
It doesn’t.
Names still feel wrong.
I overhear them speaking sometimes, quietly, carefully. Never near me. Never about me, at least not in ways I can understand.
No one asks who I am.
No one asks where I came from.
No one asks what I remember.
That absence of questioning becomes its own answer. Because even if someone asked me I wouldn't know the answer to those questions.
One night, as I lie awake listening to the rhythm of a place that is not a city, I realize something with sudden clarity.
I am not meant to be seen yet. I don't know how and why I know. But I just know it.
Whatever happened to me didn’t end when I stopped breathing or almost stopped breathing. It ended when someone moved me out of sight.
That thought settles quietly.
It doesn’t frighten me.
It organizes things.
Survival came first.
Meaning would come later.
If it came at all.
And for now, that was enough.