Chapter 1: The Awakening
When Lucky opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed was the smell—sterile, cold, too clean. The kind of smell that doesn't belong to life. Something inside her felt wrong, as if she had been ripped out of a dream she wasn't supposed to wake from.
A dim light flickered above her, humming faintly. A man in a white coat leaned over her, his face sunken with exhaustion, a knife glinting in his shaky hand. For a moment, she thought she was still dead—until the knife moved closer.
"Stop—!" The word didn't come out right. It came out as a scream, raw and desperate.
The man stumbled back, his eyes wide, lips trembling. "You— you were—" His words vanished as his knees gave out and he hit the floor.
Lucky sat up, her body stiff and cold, the sheet clinging to her skin. Her hands trembled as she looked down—she was covered in marks, purple and blue, like someone else's pain had been painted onto her. She pressed a hand to her chest. A heartbeat. Slow. Fragile. Real.
"I'm alive," she whispered. The words felt too heavy, too cruel.
But the room stayed silent. No one came. No one cared.
She slid off the metal table, her bare feet touching the cold floor. Her legs shook, not from weakness but from the echo of fear. She looked around for something—anything—that made sense. But the white walls only stared back, indifferent and empty.
In that moment, Lucky understood something she couldn't yet put into words: she hadn't been brought back to life. She'd been left behind.