Cassia discovers she alone remembers the reset. Tavi's corrected injury state carries into the next loop.
The black tag fluttered from Tavi Or's collar while his fingers scraped the tile for air that would not stay in his chest. Above the locked supply drawers, the Host Bell burned a seven-minute timer into the Admission Ward glass: 06:42, 06:41, 06:40. Contestants backed away from him as if the tag were contagious.
Cassia Rowe had woken on the floor with a nurse badge she did not recognize pinned over her scrubs and a reset tremor already buzzing in her right hand. The room smelled like cold metal, old antiseptic, and panic. A woman near the west partition screamed when a white tag on her wrist flashed yellow. A man tried the drawer handles with both fists and got a shock bright enough to throw him backward.
The Bell spoke from the ceiling vents. "Black tag. Nonviable. No save-credit available. Kill bonus remains open."
"He's breathing," Cassia said.
No one moved toward Tavi. The crowd understood one word better than the rest. Bonus.
Cassia dropped beside him. The tag on his collar pulsed black in a rhythm that did not match the timer. Tavi's lips were blue around the edges, but the skin at his throat jumped every few seconds, stubborn and uneven. A false black tag, then. The arena wanted him abandoned before anyone noticed the lie.
Mara Veen, a sharp-faced woman with a dispatcher calm forced over terror, crouched two steps away. "If the Bell says nonviable, touching him costs points."
"The Bell is lying."
"You know that how?"
Cassia pressed Tavi's wrist against the tile where the light was better and watched the tag flicker when his breath caught. She did not give instructions. This was not a hospital and the tools were not real tools. The drawer nearest his feet had a green token behind scratched glass, labeled STABILIZER in Host Bell lettering. The lock beside it showed three symbols: breath, tag, witness.
"Because the timer is still counting for him," Cassia said. "If he were already gone, the Bell would have closed the drawer."
Mara looked from the lock to Tavi's face. "You want me to be the witness."
"I want you to say what you see."
Across the ward, a heavy contestant lifted a metal stool and pointed one leg toward Tavi. "Black tags are free points. Move."
Cassia put her shoulder between the stool and the boy. Her hand shook hard enough to tap the tile. "You kill him, and you prove the Bell right."
"I get ten points."
"You get a room trained to let you die when your color changes."
That slowed him. Not mercy. Fear. It was enough.
Mara's voice cut through the ward, louder than Cassia expected. "Witness call: black tag is breathing. Timer remains active. Drawer still lit."
The lock clicked.
Cassia snatched the green token before the drawer could rethink its generosity. The token warmed in her palm, then split into a strip of light that wrapped Tavi's collar. The black tag fought it, ink crawling back over green, but his next breath dragged in deeper. The Bell lowered its tone until the glass partitions vibrated.
"Unauthorized assessment."
"Then stop the timer," Cassia said.
The numbers kept falling.
Tavi's eyes opened at 03:18. He was younger than Cassia had thought, all elbows and terror, with a tiny silver charm tied to one shoe. "Am I dead?"
"Not yet."
"That sounded temporary."
"Everything in here is temporary unless we make it expensive."
Mara let out a breath that was almost a laugh. The crowd shifted around them. People who had stepped back from the black tag now stared at the opened drawer, at the still-lit symbols, at the way the Bell had failed to silence Cassia. The stool man lowered his weapon an inch.
With forty-nine seconds left, the tag turned green for one clean second. Tavi clutched Cassia's sleeve. "It hurts less."
"Remember my voice," she told him, because some instinct under the tremor said the Bell would try to take everything else.
The timer struck zero. The Host Bell rang once, and the ward folded.
Cassia died without pain. The floor became ceiling. Her mouth filled with copper. Then she was back on the tile, badge pinned crooked, right hand shaking.
Only this time Tavi Or gasped beside her before the black tag could finish printing. Green light glimmered under the false ink.
The Bell hesitated.
"Scoring error," it announced, and every locked drawer in the Admission Ward turned toward Cassia Rowe.