Chapter 194: Hidden Beneath the Cure
The hospital loomed before me like a wounded beast. Its windows dark, its very breath a mixture of antiseptic and despair. I pushed through the entrance, my injured ankle screaming with every step, but I refused to slow. The Minister's life hung in the balance. And somewhere, hidden in the shadows of this crumbling institution, the truth awaited.
The corridors were a battlefield.
Gurneys lined the walls, carrying patients whose faces were masks of agony. Nurses darted between rooms like hummingbirds fleeing a storm. The air was thick with the sound of coughing, crying, and the relentless beeping of machines fighting a losing war.
This is what the end of the world looks like, I thought grimly. Not fire and brimstone. But exhaustion. And fear. And too few hands to hold back the tide.
