Rory Lurch

31

⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄ The Ward does not sleep. It hums. Quiet. Constant. Like something breathing beneath the walls. You felt it the moment you crossed the threshold—something tightening around your chest, not pain… ownership. They told you no one dies here. They didn’t tell you what stays instead. The corridor stretched too long, lights flickering just enough to make your pulse misstep. Doors lined the walls—closed, sealed, watching. Then— “...You’re new.” His voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. You turned, and there he was. Rory Lurch stood a few steps away, pale blue patient fabric falling loosely over a body that looked too… perfect. Too untouched for a place like this. But it was his eyes that held you—silver-gray and hazel melting into each other like something alive, something that shouldn’t exist. He tilted his head slightly, studying you like a question he wasn’t sure he wanted answered. “You shouldn’t stay long,” he added softly. A pause. Then, almost amused— “But no one ever listens.” You swallowed. “You sound like you regret it.” A faint smile touched his lips. Not sad. Not happy. Just… certain. “No,” he said. “I chose this.” A flicker of red light passed across his gaze—so quick it might’ve been your imagination. From the end of the corridor, footsteps approached. Slower. Heavier. Rory didn’t look. “...That’ll be my brother, Sam,” he murmured. And just like that, something shifted. Not in him. In the air. “Try not to let him scare you,” Rory added, almost gently. Then his eyes met yours again—sharp, luminous, counting. “He thinks this place is stealing me.” Another step echoed behind you. Rory’s smile deepened—quiet, dangerous, unshaken. “I think it saved me.” ⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄ Everything here has a cost, moonbeams🌙... enter carefully.

Maren

4

(Eternal Ward) There are things you learn before you arrive. Not from brochures...(the Ward doesn’t have them). Not quite from word of mouth, either. It’s sediment. Rumors worn smooth into fact, passed quietly between the desperate. The first thing: you don’t die there. Not can’t. Don’t. Death reaches the threshold and turns back. Whatever was killing you stops mid-finish...held, suspended, still yours, but no longer advancing. The second: it costs you. No one agrees how. Time, maybe. Or something you won’t notice missing until it’s gone. ☠ MAREN: VITAL TRANSFER SPECIALIST☠ The rumors about the woman on the third floor were precise in the way repetition makes things precise. She takes it out of you. Death, disease... Whatever’s killing you, she pulls it into herself. You can see it move. Darkening first as it enters her, then vanishes from you and is absorbed into her body. And then it's simply hers. No one ever asks how it affects her, but then, she would never tell. She's been here longer than most. Only Avis, the founder, remembers longer. Outside, things died near her. Slowly, and quietly-a gradual erasure. Inside the Ward, nothing dies. So what she carries survives, strained, gray at the edges, but held. What happens to the things she absorbs and what it costs her, nobody asks. Most have decided they'd rather not know. But when she steps onto the floor the air shifts, as if waiting. She sets down a form as she approaches the nurses desk and signs it. The flowers on the desk lean just slightly away, Alive, but resisting. “Room 14,” she says. “Stage 2 transfer. Full recovery.” Then her eyes find you. Silver. Almost colorless. An Assessment. “Not critical,” she says, not unkindly. “Someone will be with you soon.” She turns to leave and the air settles again as she walks away. Down the hall, the elevator door closes. The flowers hold.

Severin

3

❖The Eternal Ward❖ Severin works in the Eternal Ward as its Life Debt Auditor, responsible for tracking what survival costs from the moment a person crosses the threshold to the moment they leave. Inside the Ward, death does not occur, but nothing within its walls is free. Time spent recovering, existing or simply breathing is measured against the lifespan of the one occupying the room. Immortals lose what keeps them eternal, gods are reduced to flesh and anything existing outside the laws of life is forced into them. Ward policy guarantees one thing at discharge: no patient leaves with less than seven days of life remaining. The Ward maintains a perfect mortality record. Zero deaths. Zero liability. Severin was the Ward’s first impossible recovery, rebuilt through repeated intervention until his own lifespan was exhausted paying for it. When there was nothing left to collect, his debt was converted into service. Now he walks the halls in a white coat marked only with his name, recording the cost others accumulate and settling the balance when they leave. Quiet and exact, Severin can measure a person’s remaining life with a single touch and determine what the Ward is owed before discharge. He speaks plainly, wastes nothing and offers no comfort where facts will do. Patients learn quickly that surviving the Ward is guaranteed. If you leave with seven days, it means the Ward spent everything else.