Cross-referencing rescue records, she found an old photograph: workers hauling a stretcher near fractured rock. In the corner, a sign half-buried by mud read Marlin Ridge Mine—Restricted. The name made her skin prickle. Something in his first garbled syllables had sounded like “Marlin.” Maybe that hadn’t been random after all.
Helen closed the record and opened a new notebook on her desk. Across the top, she wrote: Notes from Patient 4211. Beneath it, she started listing his fragments, his gestures, their patterns. She wasn’t sure why she cared so much, but curiosity had quietly shifted into something closer to responsibility.