The alarm reads 6:14 a.m., Thursday. Maren already knows the rain starts at 6:51. She has watched it begin forty times now. Ward C smells like cleaner and cold coffee when she clocks in. Same chart. Same silent man in Bed 9 who hasn't woken in two years. She is wiping his arm when his fingers twitch and grab her wrist, hard. He has never moved before. "Day forty-one," he whispers. "Don't let it reset."

Maren yanks her wrist free and steps back. This is just an exhausted brain playing tricks, she tells herself. She has slept badly for forty days. She won't play along. She marches to the nurses' station to log the incident and prove she is still sane.