The space after the final ECT treatment was filled with a fragile, humming potential. The violent resets were over, but the dust they had kicked up inside Lara's mind was still settling. She was no longer a statue. She was a question mark.

Her movements, once dictated by nurses, became hesitant, then deliberate. She would lift her own arm to reach for a glass of water, her fingers curling around it with a concentration that furrowed her brow. She would turn the pages of a book, not to read, but to feel the paper under her thumb, to hear the whisper of it. These were not reflexes; they were choices, tiny declarations of I am.