I dreamt the monitors were breathing with me

I was lying in a bed that wasn't mine, but I knew it was mine—same IV stand, same faint smell of antiseptic and old coffee. The beeps weren’t random. They matched my breath: slow, then faster, then still. And then the machine didn’t just keep time—it started to answer. Like it had been waiting for me to notice. I tried to speak, but my voice came out as a rhythm, a low hum between heartbeats. When I woke up, my chest still felt full of that quiet. Not fear. Just presence. Like the ICU hadn’t ended when I left it.