What Remained
Copyright© 2026 by Heel
Chapter 3: Explanations
For several long seconds after the curtains were drawn back, no one spoke.
Then the questions came all at once—blurting out of the silence like startled birds.
“Is she awake?”
“Does it hurt?”
“Can she hear us?”
“How does she breathe like that?”
“Why so much iron?”
The announcer raised a hand for quiet, but it was Doctor Hendrik van der Meer who stepped forward. He did not climb the platform. He remained beside it, close enough to the frame that his presence altered the way the crowd looked at it. Not as a contraption. As a patient.
“She is fully conscious,” he said calmly. “She hears you. She understands you. What she cannot do is respond.”
That settled the room.
“You are looking at a corrective suspension frame,” the doctor continued. “It is not designed for comfort. It is designed for precision.”
He indicated the metal lattice.
“Her injuries are recent. Bones, once broken, begin to heal immediately—whether they are aligned correctly or not. This frame allows me to oppose that process. The rods, splints, and fixators you see hold each segment of her body in a position chosen deliberately, not instinctively.”
Someone asked, “The ropes? The weights?”
“They provide counterforce,” van der Meer replied. “The body reacts to gravity without mercy. We use gravity against itself. The pulleys allow tension to be adjusted in increments smaller than the hand can judge. Too much force, tissue tears. Too little, bones drift.”
He tapped one of the hanging weights gently. It swayed almost imperceptibly.
“Her legs were broken at different angles,” he went on. “The supports along the thighs, knees, and ankles prevent rotation. The pelvis fixators stabilize the center of the body. Without them, every breath would shift healing bone.”
A man near the front swallowed and asked, “What does her body do ... while like this?”
Doctor van der Meer did not flinch.
“It resists,” he said. “Muscles spasm. Inflammation rises. Fever threatens. Then, slowly—very slowly—it begins to adapt. Pain does not vanish. It changes character. Sharp pain dulls. Dull pain deepens. The nervous system recalibrates.”
He glanced briefly at the woman’s face. Her eyes remained open, steady.
“She is monitored constantly,” he said. “Breathing. Color. Pulse. If the body rejects the alignment, adjustments are made. Nothing here is fixed beyond correction.”
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