I stood in the hospital lobby staring at the note until the words stopped making sense.

  Someone knew. Someone fucking knew.

  My hands were shaking. I looked around the lobby like whoever wrote this might be watching. Just the usual crowd; people checking in, checking out, looking exhausted or worried or both. Nobody paying attention to me. I read it one more time. Flipped the paper over. Nothing on the back, no signature, no explanation, just that one sentence. The System flickered on without me asking.

  "Not now," I whispered, dismissing it. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. Someone out there knew about the System, knew I had it. And they thought I could use it to save him.

  Could I? What if there were features I hadn't unlocked? Capabilities I didn't know about? What if I was standing here with the ability to help and I was too stupid or too scared to figure it out?

  I walked back toward the ICU in a daze, the letter clutched in my hand. My feet moved automatically. Turn left at the radiology wing through the double doors, past the nurse's station.

  Murin was sitting in the waiting area with his head tilted back against the wall, eyes closed. Prisha and Kaya were gone. Akki's parents were still in the consultation room with the doctors.

  I sat down next to Murin. I folded the letter and shoved it in my pocket. We sat there. Nurses moving between rooms with tablets and medication trays. The organized choreography of preventing death. A doctor emerged from one of the rooms, pulled off his gloves, spoke quietly to a family huddled near the wall. The mother started crying, just quiet, devastating sobs that she tried to muffle with her hand. I looked away.

  "Murin," I said. "If there was something you could do. Something risky or experimental or possibly stupid. But it might help. Would you do it?"

  He opened his eyes and looked at me. "What are you talking about?"

  "Hypothetically."

  "Hypothetically if I could help Akki I'd do anything." His voice was flat. "But I can't. We can't. We're students. We don't know enough, we don't have the authority, we can't—" He stopped. Looked at my face. "What are you thinking about doing?"

  "Nothing. Hypothetically."

  "Ashru."

  "I'm just asking."

  "No, you're not." He sat forward, elbows on his knees. "You've got that look where you're about to do something that's going to get you in trouble."

  "I'm not going to do anything."

  "You're a terrible liar." He rubbed his face with both hands. "Look. Whatever you're thinking, don't. We've already lost Akki, at least temporarily. I can't lose you too because you did something idiotic trying to help."

  "He's not dead," I said.

  "I know. But he's not here either." Murin's voice cracked slightly. "And I don't know which version comes back. If any version comes back."

  A nurse walked past us carrying a tray of medications. Her shoes squeaked on the linoleum.

  "Promise me you won't do anything stupid," Murin said.

  I couldn't look at him. "I promise."

  He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes again. After a minute his breathing evened out, retreating somewhere internal where he could process this without falling apart.

  I pulled out my phone. Seventeen new messages. Classmates asking about Akki. People offering to help, to bring food, to visit. All the things people say when they don't know what else to do. I put the phone face-down on my lap.

  Visiting hours ended at seven. The nurse came by to tell us. Murin and I stood up like we were ninety years old. Mr. and Mrs. Santos emerged from the consultation room looking hollowed out. Mrs. Santos had been crying. Mr. Santos had the kind of blank expression that meant he was holding everything in with both hands.

  "They're going to keep him sedated for at least forty-eight more hours," Mr. Santos said. His voice was hoarse. "Then they'll do another CT scan. If the swelling's down enough, they'll try a wake-up trial."

  "What does that mean?" I asked, even though I knew. I'd read about it in those journal articles at 2 AM.

  "They'll reduce the sedation. See if he can breathe on his own. See if he..." He couldn't finish. Mrs. Santos made a small sound and turned away.

  "We're staying tonight," Mr. Santos continued. "There's a family room with a cot. The hospital gave us toiletries and..." He gestured vaguely. "You boys should go back. Get some rest. We'll call if anything changes."

  "We can stay," Murin offered.

  "No. Go. Please. You've been here all day." It wasn't a request.

  We took the bus back, neither of us spoke. Just stared out the windows at the city passing by. Streetlights coming on. People going about their normal Sunday evenings. The world continuing like nothing had happened.

  Got back to the room around nine. I dropped my bag and immediately pulled out the letter again. Read it for the tenth time.

  You should learn to use the System to save your friend.

  Learn to use it. Not use it right now. Not perform a miracle. I sat at my desk and activated the System.

  "Show me what I can do," I said quietly.

  I stared at the redacted section. "Show me the locked features."

  Fifty! Is this thing playing with me? "What happens at level 50?"

  Five to seven years. I felt something cold spread through my chest. "How long to level 15?"

  My hands were shaking again. "Is there a faster way?"

  "What kind of risks?"

  "Dangerous how?"

  "So you're saying even if I unlocked them, I couldn't use them."

  The words were cruelly true. I sat back in my chair. "Then what the fuck is the point?"

  "But not this helplessness. Not right now, not when it matters."

  I wanted to scream. Wanted to punch something. Wanted to tear the System out of my head and throw it against the wall. Instead I just sat there, breathing hard, staring at the floating text.

  Murin stirred on his bed. "You talking to yourself?"

  "Yeah."

  "Huh..." He rolled over to face the wall.

  I dismissed the System and pulled out the letter again.

  Five to seven years. Akki didn't have five to seven years. He had forty-eight hours.

  But maybe that wasn't what the letter meant. Maybe it meant learn to use it for the next person who would need help that I couldn't give because I wasn't good enough yet. I pulled out my laptop and started searching.

  "Traumatic brain injury recovery," "induced coma outcomes," "neurological prognosis post-SDH."

  Found studies. Statistics. Case reports. Survival rates for severe TBI with evacuated subdural hematomas ranged from 40-70% depending on age, initial GCS score, associated injuries.

  Neurological outcomes were harder to predict. Some patients woke up fine. Some had deficits—memory problems, motor weakness, personality changes. Some never woke up at all. The only thing the studies agreed on was that nobody could predict individual outcomes with certainty. You had to wait and see.

  I closed the research articles and pulled out my Surgery rotation prep materials. Started reading about surgical anatomy, common procedures, perioperative management. The System had told me to keep learning to prevent future helplessness. Maybe in five to seven years I'd be good enough that the next time someone I cared about got hurt, I wouldn't be standing in a hallway feeling useless.

  I read until my eyes burned. Until the words stopped making sense and I had to read the same paragraph three times. Until Murin's breathing evened out into actual sleep and the room got cold. Around midnight I gave up and lay down in bed.

  Akki's bed was still unmade. His desk still covered with papers and empty energy drink cans and a half-eaten bag of chips. Like he'd just stepped out and would be back any minute with some stupid story about the girl at the coffee shop or a complaint about tomorrow's lecture or a terrible joke that only he thought was funny. But he wouldn't be back tomorrow. Or the next day or maybe not ever.

  I rolled over and tried to sleep. The letter stayed in my desk drawer. The System stayed quiet. And somewhere in the ICU, machines kept breathing for Akki while the rest of us kept moving forward because that's all we knew how to do because that's all we could do.