She's unconscious..?
He wants to believe he heard her wrong.
"…She's in what state…?" he asks, the words barely forming as his mouth goes dry.
"She was hit by a car," Monica says again, slowly, carefully. "She's in a coma. She's unconscious."
This time, there's no mistaking it.
Julian feels his stomach drop, a sinking that pulls at his very core. His heart slams against his chest like a warning bell. His mouth goes dry, fingers curling over his phone tightly.
"May I ask…" he says, voice tight, "which hospital she's in?"
"Carin Hospital. Room 805," Monica replies.
"Carin Hospital… Room 805…" Julian repeats under his breath as he hurriedly types it into his phone. He's already walking over to the door. "Would it be alright… if I came right now, Ma'am?"
"Yes, you can," Monica replies softly, her voice steady but distant. "I have to get back to work, so… I probably won't be in the room when you arrive."
She rises slowly from the chair beside Grace's bed, her body heavy with exhaustion and heartbreak. Her gaze lingers on her daughter for one more moment—the pale skin, the stillness, the rhythmic hiss of the ventilator. The sight claws at her from the inside.
"I see… Thank you," Julian says quietly on the other end of the line.
And with that, the call ends.
The silence in the room returns, deafening in its weight.
Monica lowers the phone from her ear, staring at the screen for a few seconds before setting it gently on the table. She draws in a shaky breath, then exhales. Her shoulders tremble.
A tear escapes before she can stop it, tracing a path down her cheek. She quickly wipes it away with the back of her hand, collecting herself.
There's no time to cry.
A surgery awaits her—an emergency procedure scheduled just minutes from now—and her patients need her. She is a doctor before anything else.
Monica turns away from the bed. Her white coat flutters slightly as she moves with quick, practiced steps out of the room, shutting the door softly behind her.
Inside, Grace lies unmoving—unaware of the prayers, the panic, the phone calls. Unaware that someone who once hesitated to name his place in her life is now on his way.
It's 6:10 p.m. when Julian, heart pounding with an ache he can't explain, gently opens the door to Room 805.
The room is hushed, still. A single lantern glows faintly from the wall beside the bed, casting long, soft shadows across the floor. The rest of the room is steeped in twilight. From where he stands by the door, Julian sees her.
"Grace…" he breathes, his voice cracking as it escapes him.
She lies on the bed, utterly motionless. Her eyes are closed, her pale lips parted slightly beneath the clear ventilator hose. A thick bandage wraps around her head, covering the place where pain must have struck—but now there's only silence, only stillness.
Julian steps in slowly, one foot in front of the other, as if he's approaching a sacred altar. He can barely believe what he's seeing.
Grace looks… peaceful. Not as someone wounded, but like someone simply asleep—unaware of the world around her, untouched by its cruel twist. It almost looks as though nothing has happened at all. And yet everything has changed.
"Grace…" he whispers again. "How did this happen…"
His chest tightens. Tears prick the corners of his eyes, and before he can stop them, warm droplets spill over and trail down his cheeks. He doesn't move to wipe them away.
Outside, snow begins to fall, visible through the frosted window beyond the bed. The flakes are pure and white, drifting gently onto the dark city below. There's something surreal—almost poetic—in the way the snow falls so quietly, so beautifully, while pain lingers so thick inside this room. As though sorrow and serenity have met here in uneasy harmony.
Julian walks over to the chair placed by the window and lowers himself slowly into it. He shrugs off his black coat and sets it neatly by the windowsill. Then, with careful reverence, he reaches out and takes Grace's right hand into his own. Her fingers are cold, but he holds them tightly, wrapping his warmth around her as if that alone could keep her tethered to this world.
"Lord… please…" he begins, his voice low and trembling. "Heavenly Father, please save her…"
His eyes close, tears slipping freely now as he bows his head in silent desperation.
"We finally met… I finally met Hannah—Grace—in front of me, and I can't just let her go like this… not like this…"
His words crack into a whisper as his chest aches with longing.
"I haven't done anything for her yet. I haven't even begun to protect her, to be there for her the way she deserves. And now I'm just sitting here, watching her fade into silence…"
His voice grows weaker, choked by emotion.
"Please, Lord… I know You led us to meet. You brought her into my life not for nothing. You'll wake her up again… won't You? Please… please…"
The only answer is the quiet rhythm of the monitor, the hush of falling snow, and the silent strength of a prayer rising into the cold evening air.
"Please… please…"
The whisper pulls me from the fog. I stir, eyelids heavy, lashes brushing my cheeks as I blink slowly into the dim, golden room. My fingers are warm—warmer than the rest of me. Someone's holding my hand.
I turn my head, groggy and slow, and there he is—June. He's seated beside the bed, perched delicately on an old wooden chair, his hand cradling mine as if I might vanish.
His other hand is clenched on his knee, tension barely masked under calm.
The room breathes with quiet stillness. It's that familiar place—the antique room with its cream walls, soft tapestries, and the scent of wood and lavender. The kind of place where time folds in on itself.
So I'm back in the dream.
Again.
"Hannah," June murmurs, his voice like velvet worn thin by worry. He lifts his head, and a smile—soft, symmetrical—finds his lips. It's that smile. The one that never seems to belong to this world. The one that belongs to someone else.
"I'm back in the dream…" The words escape me like breath against a windowpane.
June's expression shifts. A flicker of something behind his eyes—surprise, confusion.
"You are back in what?"
I shake my head, brushing it off.
"No, no. Never mind."
He doesn't press. He just watches me, and I watch him, and for a second, I forget the difference between the two people he resembles.
A smile edges onto my lips, unbidden, quiet. It's uncanny—how much he looks like Professor Julian. The curve of the jaw. The tilt of the nose. The slight crease between the brows when they're concerned, like now.
So I'm back. In this dream. Again. It's been… how long? Days? Weeks? Longer?
"Hannah, are you all right?" June asks, leaning closer, his voice edged with concern. His eyes search mine like he's looking for a fracture only he knows how to mend.
I nod slowly and feel the dryness in my throat.
"Why am I…?" My voice rasps, hoarse and foreign to my own ears.
"You fainted during the shooting practice," he says, his voice low, almost guilty. "You've been pushing yourself too hard. Caught a cold, maybe. Drained your energy."
Ah. Right. The training. The drills. The missions looming like ghosts in the distance. I've been preparing. Readying myself for what's to come. Whatever that is.
I want to protest, to say I can handle it—but something in his voice softens me.
"Well… I think I just overdid it," I say after a beat, a weak smile curving my lips. "I'll find my balance. I won't faint again."
June looks at me, his eyes clouded with concern. There's something else behind the worry—something unspoken, like he's calculating risk not with numbers, but with heartbeats.
Then, the door creaks open.
A soft shaft of light cuts through the dimness as Angela steps in, her silhouette outlined in the doorway. She's holding a glass of water in one hand, a small white pill in the other. Her boots make soft thuds against the wooden floor as she crosses the room, the tension trailing in with her.
"You're awake," she says, her voice easing with relief as she kneels beside June at the edge of the bed. She sets the water gently on the nightstand and offers the pill in the curve of her palm.
"Here, take this," she adds.
I sit up just enough to take the pill, the glass cools against my skin. The water slips past my lips and carries the medicine down my dry, aching throat.
"Thank you," I whisper, my voice a mere thread of sound—hoarse, raw. Like something worn down by weather.
Angela glances sideways at June, then back at me.
"What should we do?" she murmurs. "I was thinking of going on the next mission with Hannah, but… seeing her like this, maybe I should go alone."
"No," I say quickly, the word sharper than I intend. I push myself up straighter, the sheets rustling, the ache in my body flaring. "I can go."
Both of them turn to me. June's eyes narrow slightly, then steel. He shakes his head.
"No. You should stay."