Thump. Thump. Thump.

That was the first thing I felt.
Not the walls. Not the floor.
Inside me.

I tried to open my eyes and the light stabbed right through. My head felt cracked and full of fire. I shut them fast and held my skull like I could keep it from splitting.

A sound came out of me that wasn’t a word.
“Mmmuugh…”

My head pounded so hard it felt like my brain was trying to get out. My stomach rolled with it. The air was hot and heavy and tasted like metal. Every breath scraped.

Something moved under my ribs. Not my heartbeat, but keeping time with it. Slow. Heavy. Like an echo that didn’t belong to me.

I don’t know how long I stayed like that. The pain came in waves, until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began. When I finally tried to roll and sit up, my arms gave out. They felt like iron. I fell into the blanket and lay there, breathing through it.

After a while I tried again. My arms shook like they didn’t trust me, but I dragged the blanket over my head and let a thin strip of light in. It still burned, just not as bad.

I opened my eyes.

And there they were.

Numbers.

Everywhere.

I dropped the blanket and saw them all. They hung in the air, clung to the walls, the floor and the window. Little gold marks flickered and shifted too fast to catch. My heartbeat made them twitch. Any sound made more appear.

I didn’t know what they meant. I didn’t want to. It felt like too much.

My skull started to split again. I shut my eyes, but the numbers stayed, burned into the dark behind my eyelids. My hand slipped off the blanket and the room tilted.

Thud.

I hit the floor. My cheek stuck to the wood, cool and a little sticky. The rest of me burned. My stomach heaved and then everything inside came up. It was excrutiating.

It hurt to breathe. My whole body shook, like it had forgotten how to be still. The numbers kept flashing, faster now, filling the corners.

The door flew open.

“Asbeel! Honey! What’s wrong? What happened?”

Mama’s voice cut through the noise.
Then her arms were around me, warm and shaking. She didn’t care about the mess. She pulled me close and pressed her cheek to my hair.

“Shhh, it’s alright,” she whispered. “I’ve got you. You’re okay. Just breathe.”

Her fingers pushed the hair off my face, cool against my skin. “You’re burning up. Oh, sweetheart, please… stay with me.”

I wanted to answer, but her voice started to drift, like it was underwater. The edges of the world went soft and gray. The slow hum under my ribs was the only thing that stayed.

“Mama,” I said, or maybe I didn’t.

Light came back, not from outside but from inside me. It filled everything, white and heavy. Mama’s voice went away. The last thing I felt was her hand on my cheek.

Nothing after that.

***

When I woke again, the pain was gone.

No pounding. The light was soft now, coming through the window. The moon was small and quiet.

Everything looked the same, but didn’t feel the same. My skin tingled. My chest felt full, like something new had moved in and put its things on the shelves.

Slowly, I pushed myself up. My arms still ached, but they listened. The blanket slid off my shoulders. The air in the room was still, but not dead. It felt awake somehow.

Mama slept by the bed, her head on her arms. Mira was curled on the floor in a pile of clothes in the corner, holding a chunk of bread she’d half eaten before falling asleep.

“I guess they were worried,” I whispered. My voice sounded rough, like I hadn’t used it in days.

I moved my gaze and then I saw it.

A number floated near the ceiling.

64

Faint and gold. I blinked but it stayed. I rubbed my eyes. Still there.

I slid out from under the blanket and tiptoed past Mama. The floor creaked. She didn’t move. I walked toward the number. It shimmered as if it were waiting for me.

Tiny letters blinked in beside it.

64°F

“It’s the air,” I whispered. “The temperature.”

Why could I see that?

Something dropped behind me. A soft thump.
Mira’s bread had fallen.

I turned to pick it up. A thin golden outline traced its edge. A new number flickered beside it.

58g

The weight.

I held the bread and watched the number steady itself. My heart sped up. The low hum in my chest answered.

More numbers bloomed. Small, shy things.
One hovered by the candle stub on my desk.
23% — maybe the wax left.
Another by the curtain.
0.4 m/s — the tiny pull of air through the window crack.

I turned in a slow circle, mouth open without meaning to.
Every part of the room had a voice now.
Everything was whispering.

It wasn’t noisy. It just… was.

My fingertips buzzed when I reached into the air, as if there were strings I couldn’t see. For a second I thought I felt the numbers themselves, tiny and cool against my skin.

Then I was brought back.

Mama snored softly. Mira breathed in little uneven puffs.

Normal sounds.

Safe ones.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding and sat on the bed. My body still felt wrong, heavy and hollow at once, like someone had swapped my bones and forgot to tell me.

In the moonlight my hands looked the same, but they didn’t feel like mine. Something moved under the skin, faint and gold, not exactly light but close.

“Maybe it’s a dream,” I whispered, but didn’t believe it.

I looked around the room again. The numbers waited, gentle and patient.

I slid under the blanket and closed my eyes.
The hum in my chest stayed, softer now, almost a song.

Outside, the night held still.
The moons had pulled apart.
The quiet stayed quiet.