Thanks for the careful read. Honestly, these are fair notes, and oh gosh, yeah, I can see where I got it wrong!
For the opening, I was treating the brain less as a literal pain-feeling organ and more as the last ugly symbolic human piece left in the room. But yeah, "pulsed" and "trembled" probably make it feel too biological and literal, and the heart comparison may be leading the reader toward the wrong expectation. I think the fix is probably to make the image colder and less alive. Something closer to “the last wet human thing,” rather than making it act like an organ with agency.
On the prayer line, you are right about 'loosens." I meant release from pain, not weakness or loss of grip, so "eases" or something closer to that would probably better.
"Better words' was meant as Ceron saying the old prayer is not enough for what is happening to him. Not that he rejects prayer itself, more that the language cannot carry the horror of this procedure anymore. I think I need one cleaner cue there. Maybe something like him saying the prayer is "too clean" or "too small" before asking for better words.
The prayer response value was meant to be disturbing because the cult has turned even prayer into something measurable on a monitor. I wanted that to feel wrong without stopping to explain it, but I can see why it might need one sharper beat. Maybe instead of explaining the whole system, I can make Mara react to it more clearly, so the reader understands that the number itself is the horror.
So my likely revision direction would be: cleaner anatomical imagery in the opening, "eases' instead of 'loosens,' one clearer emotional cue for 'better words,' and one small beat showing that prayer being quantified is not normal or holy- but bureaucratic and wrong.
Does that sound like the right fix, or do you think any of those problems need a bigger structural change rather than just sharper wording?