Chapter 104
The Hospital Record
Room Seven waited in the hospital basement.
The building still operated above it. Nurses moved through bright corridors, unaware of the archive beneath their feet.
Daniel stopped at the basement door.
“Elise died here.”
Rowan took his hand.
“I remember.”
“You were not there.”
“My memory was.”
The door opened.
Inside was a hospital room preserved from fourteen years earlier. Elise lay in the bed. A machine recorded her speech patterns. Beside her sat the child version of Rowan.
Claire found a note on the bedside table.
The patient refuses transfer. The father consents on her behalf.
Daniel read it.
“I did not consent.”
Elise's recorded voice answered from the machine.
“You did.”
Daniel turned toward the bed.
“Elise?”
“You told them I was no longer capable of choosing.”
“You could not speak.”
“You decided that meant I had nothing to say.”
The machine played a second voice: Everett's.
“A family witness must choose for the patient.”
Elise answered, “Then the family is the illness.”
The hospital room doors locked.
Rowan stepped toward the bed.
“Mother?”
The machine said her name.
Not Rowan. Not Ada.
The first name Elise had chosen before the clinic changed the records.
Daniel covered his mouth.
The hospital lights above them began to flicker.
On the wall, a new status appeared.
ELISE VALE — WITNESS UNRESOLVED.
The bed beside the machine was empty.
Something beneath it began to breathe.