Adyanth woke to the sound of a fluorescent light struggling to decide whether it was alive.
Flicker. Buzz. Flicker. Buzz.
His head throbbed. His mouth tasted like dried iron.
Every inch of him ached—but also felt... strangely sterile.
Less pain, more paperwork.
And the air? That awful sanitized chemical tang of somewhere that didn't want you dead—just processed.
He blinked once.
Twice.
Oh.
He was in a hospital.
Crisp white sheets. Grey-tiled ceiling.
A monitor beeping in a rhythm far too judgmental.
And beside him, slouched across a plastic stool like someone had poured a man into it and forgotten to stir—
"Ah. Sleeping Beauty awakens," drawled the figure.
"Great. There goes my betting pool. I had Wednesday at 3 a.m. for fatal organ failure."
Adyanth blinked again.
The man grinned.
"Dr. Yurrel. I'll be your aggressively underpaid savior for the week. Try not to die again, it's annoying."
He looked like he hadn't slept in three days.
Lab coat stained with six kinds of regret.
Hair like it had tried to strangle him mid-shift.
And eyes—deep, sunken things that flickered between intelligence and moral bankruptcy.
Adyanth stared.
Yurrel smirked and popped a sour candy into his mouth like it was a tranquilizer.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Why are you here, right?
Why are you patched up in the private ward when most street kids don't get gauze unless they bribe the nurse with smokes?"
He leaned in conspiratorially.
"Short version? Political theater.
Long version? Well..."
He stretched dramatically.
"You, my charbroiled friend, are a PR liability.
See, turns out when a war goes on too long, things get messy— food prices skyrocket, crime spirals, and people who used to be too busy surviving suddenly have the free time to riot."
Yurrel gestured wildly.
"So, the opposition party—bless their opportunistic souls—spun this neat little narrative: 'Look! The border region's in ruins! No power! No food! And the kids?
Oh, the poor orphaned cherubs!' Add a few teary interviews, some grainy footage of children farming weeds, and boom—scandal!"
He clapped once.
"And you, darling corpse-boy, are the poster child of our negligence. Your parents were first civilian casualties in the neutral zone? Tragic. Institutional abuse? Juicy. Comatose on a mattress in a rat motel of an orphanage? Chef's kiss."
Adyanth's chest tightened.
"So you saved me... because it was politically convenient?"
Yurrel shrugged.
"Why else? Compassion? Please. I'm a doctor, not a delusionist."
Adyanth gritted his teeth.
"You should've left me. I was supposed to die."
Yurrel sighed with exaggerated exasperation.
"Oh great. Another one. Listen kid, half the planet wants to die. The other half can't afford it. But sure, go on, yell at the guy who resuscitated you— let's make trauma bonding fun."
Adyanth sat up too fast and winced.
"You don't get it. I didn't cry when my parents died. Not when they burned. Not when I was alone in the dark. I only ever feel pain when it's about me. I'm disgusting. I deserve—"
Yurrel held up a hand.
"Whoa whoa whoa, slow down there, Hamlet.
Let's unpack that."
He squinted.
"You're saying you can't mourn? But physical pain? Top-tier performance art?"
He dug into his coat pocket, pulled out a tiny flashlight, and shone it into Adyanth's eyes.
"No obvious brain damage. Pupils reactive. Which means... it's not physical."
He grinned.
"Ohhh, I haven't had a case this existential in weeks."
He clapped his hands once—half-excitement, half-sarcasm.
"And you, my mystery meat, are going for a scan."
Yurrel wheeled out a battered EEG, ECG machines like it was a pet turtle.
"Don't complaint. Don't ask questions. No, this isn't optional. Sit there. Don't die."
---
The machine beeped as if offended by its own existence.
Yurrel strapped wires to Adyanth's chest, temples, and wrists, humming a military march under his breath.
He glanced at the screen.
Then frowned.
Then tilted his head.
Then slowly said,
"…Huh."
Adyanth didn't move.
Yurrel leaned closer.
"Okay. So your pulse? It's there. Technically.
But barely.
Like your heart read the job description and said 'nah, I'll do the minimum.'"
More silence. More blinking lights.
"You should've died," Yurrel said cheerfully.
"Seriously. The internal bleeding, the fever, the stress on your cardiovascular system—
textbook case of 'Goodnight, sweet prince.'
But instead? You've got the most precisely-stable low vitals I've ever seen. It's like your body's saying: Fine. I'll live. Out of spite."
He wheeled the machine back without further explanation.
Adyanth's hands trembled slightly.
"Why?" he asked.
Yurrel shrugged.
"Beats me. Might be trauma resilience. Might be genetic. Might be the universe playing dice with a loaded clown. I stopped believing in meaning three regimes ago."
---
Yurrel tossed a folder onto Adyanth's bed.
Opened it.
Pulled out a diagram that may or may not have been a human nervous system.
"Now, let's talk about what else is broken."
"Can't wait," Adyanth muttered.
"Love the enthusiasm."
Yurrel pointed to the chart.
"Physically? You'll heal. The injuries are healing—thanks to a rare event called actual medical care.
Emotionally though? Oh boy."
He squinted.
"Tell me. When you think of your parents, what do you feel?"
Adyanth hesitated.
"I… feel nothing."
"But if someone kicks you?"
"I cry."
Yurrel leaned back, clapped twice.
"Bingo. You've got what I'm calling Emotive Dissociation by Selective Load Response. Not a real term. But real enough."
"Honestly? You are a walking paradox.
Lucky enough to survive an explosion, unlucky enough to live with the emotional range of a vending machine."
He leaned back.
"Universe let you live... just to take away your reason for living. Honestly? Could be spite."
---
Adyanth blinked slowly, as if trying to decode a dialect of madness.
Yurrel let out a dramatic sigh, arms crossed like a disappointed theater critic.
"Alright, kid, I'll put it in grayscale for you: Your brain's reward system? Fried.
The pleasure center—joy, satisfaction, peace, all that warm fuzzy nonsense?
It's basically running on fumes. You can't feel the good stuff."
He gave a mock shrug.
"What's left on the menu is guilt, anger, rage, despair… a fun little buffet of internal doom.
And since your coping mechanisms packed up and left with your serotonin,
you—congratulations—are extremely high-risk for self-harm. Yay, neuroscience."
Adyanth sat there, mute.
The information sank in like water on old wounds—silent, but stinging.
Then, just for a second, something flickered in his eyes.
He looked up, voice soft but unsteady.
"What about grief? That's… a negative emotion too, right? Is that why I can't mourn them?"
His throat felt tight. Even asking the question felt like betrayal.
Like saying their names out loud would confirm the nothingness inside him.
Yurrel's grin widened like a shark spotting blood.
"Oh, look at that—he thinks.
You're sharper than most filing cabinets around here."
"But only half right," he added, wagging a finger.
"You see, grief isn't just sadness.
It's loss. And loss—real loss—requires your brain to feel what it no longer has. That ache? That gaping wound where comfort used to live? That comes from contrast."
Yurrel gestured vaguely over Adyanth's head.
"Your parents sound like they were good at their job—unlike mine, who once tried to microwave lentils with the bag still on.
So your memories of them? Mostly happy warm and gentle. Intact."
"But your brain, genius that it is, can't access the emotional weight of that happiness.
Because—spoiler alert—you can't feel joy.
So it can't process what's gone.
Which means…"
He tapped his temple.
"You don't grieve. Because, neurologically speaking, your brain never understood what it lost in the first place."
---
Adyanth flinched. Not from the sarcasm—but from the precision of it.
It landed like glass breaking in his chest.
The truth was worse than he imagined.
He hadn't betrayed them.
His body had.
---
"Is it curable?" he asked quietly.
Yurrel shrugged.
"Technically? Yeah. Neuromodulation, behavioral therapy, probably six figures and three years of crying in someone's office."
Adyanth sat still.
"Would you treat me?"
Yurrel snorted.
"Kid, I was contracted to slap a bandage on you, keep you breathing until inspection day.
The moment the politicians finish their selfie session, I'm back to patching up gang stabbings and riot burns."
He moved toward the door.
"You're will be discharged tomorrow. The orphanage gets a gold star for survival.
Inspection committee smiles. Everyone forgets."
Then, a pause.
He looked back.
"You've got a rare condition.
Something deeper than trauma. Something you'll carry into everything you do.
It doesn't mean you're broken. Just rare."
Another pause.
"And maybe... maybe the universe spared you not out of mercy. But because it knew it could laugh longer this way."
He smirked.
"Use it."
Then he left.
---
Adyanth lay back on the bed.
He felt nothing.
But inside that nothing… was purpose.
Grief didn't disappear.
It waited.
For the boy to deserve it.
He had to earn it.
And so he would.
Even mourning, for him, came with a price.
And he'd pay it.
Because the universe was unfair.
But so was he.