The evac zone had the kind of quiet that didn't come from peace, but from everything that had just happened.
Like the noise had been drained out of the world for a while, and now no one really knew how to bring it back. It wasn't the silence of safety—it was the silence of after.
It wasn't empty, far from it.
Students filled the wide medical bay—some lying flat on fold-out stretchers, others hunched on metal benches that ran along the walls.
A few sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning against crates or their own arms, still too shaken to move much.
Most of them looked hollow. Not injured, just… far away. Like, some of them hadn't made it out of the forest yet.
Some clutched their heads or held their arms, not from physical pain but from something they didn't have words for yet.
Others stared into nothing, eyes unfocused, mouths slightly open like they wanted to say something but forgot what it was.
