They came out of the trucks in single file, eyes squinting against the midmorning sun, blankets dragging behind them like shed skins.
Nurses in crisp scrubs and paramedics in sweat-stained uniforms guided them through glass doors that hissed open too fast. The world inside smelled like antiseptic and bleach, humming with vents and overhead pages calling doctors who would never understand what it cost to get here.
Rafi's legs shook. His shoes squelched mud with each step, leaving a trail that an orderly trailed after with a mop, eyes darting to the kids as if they might lash out.
They sat the children in rows of plastic chairs along the hallway. One by one, they were peeled away — led behind curtains where nurses unwrapped the filthy clothes, scrubbed dirt out of wounds, whispered reassurances in sugar-sweet voices that did nothing to quiet the pounding inside Rafi's skull.
He barely heard the questions. What happened out there? Were there animals? Did anyone hurt you? Did the counselor hurt you?
He wanted to laugh. The only hurt was in the roots that knew your name before you ever spoke it. He didn't try to say that out loud — he knew by now the nurses didn't want the truth.
In the next cubicle over, the braid girl sat stiff and silent as an older woman fussed with bandages on her scratched forearms. When the nurse left, she caught Rafi's eye through the half-open curtain. Her face cracked just a little then — not to cry, but to let him see that her fear was coiled tight under her ribs like his.
Down the hall, someone screamed. The small boy who had nearly run into the shadows was thrashing on a gurney, nurses pinning him down as he shrieked about roots under the floor, begging for them to lift him so the dirt couldn't crawl up his spine.
A doctor with tired eyes and a forced smile shut the door on that sound. Rafi saw him turn to a social worker in the corridor — mouthing words that drifted to Rafi like fog: trauma, hallucination, shock. He recognized those words. They'd bury the truth in paperwork and prescriptions.
A man in a cheap suit appeared, heavy briefcase bumping his knee. He handed the braid girl's nurse a card — child protective services. Rafi caught the shape of a frown on the braid girl's mouth as she watched him. He knew she was already planning which window she'd climb out of if they tried to take her somewhere alone.
Hours blurred. Warm broth in paper cups. Soft slippers. Whispered gossip about news vans parked outside.
When a nurse told him his father was waiting in a visitors' lounge, Rafi stood slowly, bracing a hand against the wall as the hallway seemed to dip and roll beneath him. He followed her past open doors — glimpses of the others, curled under blankets that would never be thick enough to keep the forest's voice out.
In the waiting room, his father rose too fast from a chair. His eyes were red-rimmed, stubble dark on his jaw. He opened his arms, awkward and stiff, like he didn't quite believe Rafi was real until he felt him shaking in his embrace.
Rafi let him hold on a moment longer than he wanted. The words caught behind his teeth: You left. I didn't want you there. Then I did.
None of it mattered now. Or maybe all of it did. He didn't know anymore.
The nurse asked his father to sign a stack of forms. Rafi slipped back into his seat, head leaning against the cold plaster wall. Somewhere far away, the braid girl's voice rose in sharp defiance, telling an official she would not be separated from her people again, not after surviving the forest.
Rafi's eyelids fluttered. He sank into a restless drift where the hospital lights flickered like distant campfires and roots crept beneath the tile, patient as always.
They said he was safe. He'd let them say it.
But even here, the forest was humming under the floor, waiting for the kids to close their eyes long enough to remember what it really was.