The Flying Star
Copyright© 2025 by Heel
Chapter 2
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The sound was distant, mechanical — the heartbeat of a room, not a person.
Aneli drifted upward through fog and light until her eyes opened to a ceiling she didn’t recognize.
White. Too white.
The smell hit her next — antiseptic, metal, and something faintly burnt, like alcohol on skin.
A fluorescent hum filled the air.
It was not the music of the circus, not the hush before applause.
She tried to swallow. Her mouth was dry, her throat raw.
When she turned her head, pain spread down her neck and through her ribs like electricity. She gasped softly.
“Shh. Easy now,” a woman’s voice said — calm, steady.
A nurse came into focus beside the bed, her blue uniform neat, her eyes soft. “You’re in St. Helena’s Hospital. You’ve been through an accident, Miss Vale. You’re safe here.”
The words didn’t settle.
Aneli blinked, disoriented. The lights were too bright, her body too heavy. She shifted slightly — or tried to — and something resisted.
Her gaze dropped, and she froze.
From the middle of her thighs upward, she was sealed in a thick white plaster cast.
It rose over her hips, her ribs, her chest — climbing higher until it stopped just beneath her armpits, molded tight against her skin. The surface gleamed under the sterile light, smooth and solid like stone. Around the top edge, bits of soft gauze cushioned her shoulders where the plaster bit in. She could feel its weight pressing into her stomach, every breath shallow against its unyielding shell.
Both her legs were elevated, propped up in white canvas slings that hung from a frame above the bed. The cast ended at her mid-thighs, leaving her knees and bare feet uncovered — pale, still, and distant. Her toes pointed slightly downward, unmoving.
She stared at them for a long time.
Then she tried to move them.
Nothing.
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