Chapter 5

She learned to walk again.

Not in the way she had imagined—free, unburdened, unnoticed—but in a new, strange rhythm. The heel that had once borne her weight was gone, irreparable. She could not place it on the ground, could not trust it to hold her. So she adapted, instinctively, painfully: she walked on her toes, using her crutches to bear what her body could no longer manage. Each step was deliberate, careful, an awkward choreography of balance and pain.

Her left foot wore a special shoe with an elastic sole, allowing her to flex her toes as she stepped. The difference was subtle but crucial: it gave her the ability to push off slightly with each step, creating a faint spring in her movement. It made her gait uneven, strange, yet somehow alive. Every flex of the elastic sole produced a tiny rhythm, a sound, a motion that caught the eye without her trying.

It drew attention. Of course it did.

Neighbors passing by her window paused. People on the street looked up, startled by the scrape of crutches, the unusual tilt of her body, and the curious motion of that one foot as it bent and released, flexing impossibly with each step. It was not graceful. It was not elegant. It was raw, exposed, a human shape navigating a world not built for her condition.