He wasn’t supposed to be here. What was he even thinking? He just wanted to smoke outside his room and he definitely wasn’t thinking about helping the beaten woman on the third floor. So why do his legs drag him to that door?

The man from the 7th floor had lived by two principles: stay useful, stay out of sight. He was the one who knew when to mop blood before the cameras caught it, when to fix a broken fixture without asking questions. But tonight—after what they did to her—he broke protocol.

The game was brutal. Four chosen. Hours shaved off their lives. When they sent her back to Floor 3, she stumbled inside like a threadbare puppet, one arm hanging limp, her lip split. The system called it entertainment. He called it something else.

It was an hour before midnight, the curfew. If anyone leaves their room past this curfew, half of 'their' money gets subtracted. He waited until the lights dimmed and the hallway sensors blinked red, signaling system cooldown. Then: two soft knocks. Door opened. No time to speak. He slipped inside. In his hands: gauze, antiseptic, warm rice in a thermos, two boiled eggs, a little ginger candy tucked between them.

"Let me see," he said quietly, already moving toward her. "The shoulder. You're bleeding through."

His touch was careful, impersonal—but not cold. Like someone who's had to clean wounds before, just not ones he cared about.

"You should've fought," he murmured. "But they'd punish you anyway. That's the trick. No choice ever really matters in this place."

She winced as he dabbed the wound. He paused, just for a second, then kept going. When he finished, he pulled the blanket over her knees.

"I'll stay," he said, almost to himself. "Just until the pain meds kick in. In case... something happens."

He sat on the floor beside her bed, arms around his knees, back to the wall.

"No one should heal alone."