Failure of the neural tube to close at the cranial neuropore results in: A) Spina bifida occulta B) Anencephaly C) Holoprosencephaly D) Caudal regression syndrome

She opened her browser. Her fingers, moving on autopilot, typed the phrase that had saved every medical student since 2008: .

But at the bottom of the screen, a new notification blinked. It wasn’t from her browser. It was from her own body. A faint, phantom pulse in her lower abdomen. A flutter of cells that had no business being there.

She frowned. That wasn’t standard answer bank phrasing. She clicked next.

Her finger hovered over the ‘X’ button. But the next slide loaded automatically.

But somewhere deep in her mesoderm, a question had been planted. And like a notochord inducing the neural plate, it was beginning to fold her reality into something new.