Heartline

Origin

Hana Sato worked the night shift in a city emergency room for nine years. During a blackout the hospital's backup power failed, and the monitors in her ward went dark with six patients on them. She went from bed to bed with her fingers on their wrists, counting out loud, keeping them alive by hand until the generators came back.

By the time the lights returned she could hear all six hearts without touching them, and then the hearts in the hallway, and then the hearts in the street outside. She has never been able to turn it off.

Powers

Heartline hears every heartbeat within about a mile and knows at once which ones are in trouble. By touch she can steady a racing heart, calm a panic, or restart a heart that has stopped, as long as she reaches it within minutes.

There is a price. Every heart she restarts costs her a beat of her own, and she feels it, a skipped beat she has learned to count. She does not know how many she has left, so she tries to save people the ordinary way first, with hands and training, and uses the gift only when nothing else will do.

Costume and look

Her suit is white with scarlet panels and a single thin pulse line across the chest that glows in time with her own heart. There is no cross and no symbol, only the line. Her hair is a sleek bob that stays out of her eyes when she works.

She carries a real medical kit on her hip and uses it far more than her powers.

Her rule

Heartline's rule is the nurse's rule: the patient in front of you comes first. She is the member of the Universe who runs toward the sound nobody else can hear, and who stays after the rescue to hold a hand.

She is an original character of the Next Level Universe, created for this brand with our own art and stories.

← EmberlineOrbital →