Lin Yuan had faint dark circles under her eyes. She hadn't slept well. Closing her eyes, she kept seeing the image of that pale finger twitching slightly and that face whose shadows seemed deeper in the dim light. Reason told her this was merely over-attention due to fatigue, a psychological projection common among medical staff caring for long-term coma patients—a yearning to see "change."
But intuition, that sharp intuition of a seasoned nurse attuned to the subtlest shifts in life, pricked at her gently.
The day-shift nurse, Zhang Wei, took the record board and scanned it quickly. "Quiet night?" she asked casually, her voice fresh with the morning.
"Yeah. Vital signs stable." Lin Yuan paused, her finger unconsciously swiping across the tablet screen to bring up that patient's page. "It's just... close to midnight, Bed 7 seemed to have a very slight finger tremor. I noted it down."
"Bed 7?" Zhang Wei looked up, slightly surprised. "The young vegetative patient from the car accident? Been almost a year, right? Any history of that before?"
"Not that I've encountered. Might just be an occasional." Lin Yuan added, sounding more like she was trying to convince herself.
Zhang Wei nodded, unconcerned. "Yeah, patients like this sometimes have minor involuntaryes, not uncommon. The family is coming this morning; I'll update them on the routine." She quickly shifted her attention to other patients needing more urgent care.
After handing over her duties and changing out of her uniform, Lin Yuan didn't leave immediately. Almost against her will, she found herself circling back outside Room 7, peering in through the observation window.
Morning light sliced through the blinds, casting bright stripes on the floor. He lay at the border of light and shadow, half his face bathed in sunlight, pale and almost translucent; the other half hidden in shadow, yet strangely appearing... somewhat solemn. The family hadn't arrived yet; the room held only the monotonous sounds of running machines.
His right hand still rested quietly outside the thin blanket.
Lin Yuan watched for several minutes. Nothing happened. She took a deep breath and turned to leave. Maybe I really am overthinking it.
Around 10 a.m., the patient's mother arrived. A middle-aged woman with prematurely graying hair and a weary face. As she had done every day for nearly a year, she sat by her son's bed, holding his unresponsive hand, whispering softly about household, changes in the weather, or simply weeping silently. The staff were long accustomed to this scene.
Zhang Wei came in for her routine check, verified the instruments, adjusted the IV drip rate. As she was leaving, she remembered Lin Yuan's handover note and said to the mother in a light tone, "Auntie, our night nurse observed a slight finger movement last night, very minor. It might not mean much, but it's a little sign."
The mother's eyes instantly lit up. Tears welled from, and she gripped her son's hand tightly, voice trembling, "Really? Xiao Yu? You can hear Mom, can't you? Move again, move again for Mom to see..."
Zhang Wei sighed inwardly, knowing this hope was, but couldn't bring herself to douse it. She gently reminded, "Auntie, this is just an occasional occurrence. Please don't get too excited; take care of your health. We'll manage any changes promptly."
The mother nodded repeatedly, her gaze locked on her son's face, her growing more urgent.
Zhang Wei left the room, shaking her head slightly. She'd seen it too many times. Hope could be sustenance, but sometimes it was a deeper torment.
Inside the room, the mother's persistent, emotionally charged and touch were like stones dropped into a deep pool. On the monitor, the heart rate climbed slowly from a steady 62 to 65, 68... finally settling at 70. Blood pressure showed slight fluctuations. On the EEG screen, the flat lines seemed to develop slightly richer,, though still far below the threshold for conscious activity.
And in the rotting garden—
The vines "gazing" in that certain direction seemed to receive a kind of "noise." Not a clear pluck, but a chaotic tremor (utterly unlike the garden's). This "noise" seemed to "agitate" them. The vines the "statue" tightened slightly, their instinct to consume, but their search for the new "path" did not cease.
They began to imitate the rhythm of that "noise,", like the beating of a dark heart. The stench of decay in the garden seemed to grow thicker with this pulsation.
The "he" within the "statue" endured a: on one side, the warm, fragmentedbrought by his mother's; on the other, the "attention" from the vines reacting to this "external interference." His very "existence" was being pulled and probed by two forces.
In reality, the mother repeatedly stroked her son's, her teardrops falling on the back of his hand.
In the dream, a vine, its tip forked like