I didn't expect it to be so quiet. The rush, the urgency these corridors had — all of it, gone. Hmm. It
does feel kind of peaceful. Well, let's get moving. I don't want this peace to turn into the questions I
have no answers for.
These questions bring a mental exhaustion that far outweighs the physical one — so even though
every cell in my legs feels like I have climbed Mount Fuji, I still need to complete my rounds.
"Aaah. I'll miss you, my precious bench."
"How long do you plan to sit on this bench and talk to ghosts while we are saving the living? Must
be nice, chatting with the dead. You know, some of us actually have patients — it would be nice if
you did what you were told and kept them from joining your ghost meeting."
A sudden straightening of the spine. Heat crawling up the back of my neck. This voice — the one
that sounds like black coffee and three hours of sleep — it can only be her.
Oh no. No no no.
I forgot to keep track of the time. Why does reality have this salty relationship with me? I didn't
need Dr. Nao to drag me back from inside my own head — it's not like I was enjoying it in there
after all. But maybe. Maybe I would rather stay there than face her.
She has caught me slacking. The worst part isn't being caught — it's that she doesn't even look
surprised. And I can't even be properly defensive about it because she's right. I was slacking. I know
it. She knows it. The bench knows it.
"I — I was just taking a short break," I manage, my voice barely holding itself together. It's the only
thing I can think to say.
She doesn't even blink.
"The night is young and you already look like a casualty. I'm here to treat patients, not nurse a
grown man through his first hard shift. Figure it out — and if you can't, this hospital has a very
comfortable exit."
She doesn't wait for a response. She never does. I watch her walk back through those corridor doors
like she owns every square foot of this building. Maybe she does.
I sit back down on the bench. Just for a second.
Maybe I always knew these words were true. I just needed to outrun them long enough to pretend
otherwise.
I took the night shift — not because anyone asked me to, but because I wanted to prove something.
Morning always carried me. Its noise, its rush, its chaos — it never left room for thinking. But night
is different. Night is quiet. And quiet asks questions nobody volunteers to answer.
Being a doctor was my dream all along. I cannot remember a version of myself that didn't want to
be a doctor. And I was so happy — in a way, satisfied with my life when I got to attend medical
university and graduate from there. But now, as an intern, every passing day is like a step forward
in a desert vast enough to lose yourself in and windy enough that you can't even hear yourself being
lost.
But here's the thing —
It's not even that I don't like this hospital, or the patients, or even Dr. Nao. Well, the child in me gets
to live his dream every day. But the rest of me has forgotten what that satisfaction felt like.
I let out a slow breath — the kind that doesn't really solve anything but feels necessary anyway.
Then I stood up.
"Time to work — before she makes me a real ghost."
I finished my rounds and went back to Dr. Nao's office to report everything. It took a little longer
than usual — but the bench gets half the blame.
I opened the door. Every time I come into this office it never ceases to amaze me and also, quietly,
scare me. The walls, the desk, the files stacked on it like she never goes home — and the air in here
makes me feel so little, even though I call myself a doctor.
Nope. No one here. No need for me to go in.
I pulled the door shut.
Maybe Dr. Nao went to the ICU to check on critical patients. We are always short handed at night
— that's one of the reasons my request for the night shift got accepted so quickly. Maybe that's why
she works so hard too.
But honestly? I'm not even sure that workaholic ghost has a home to go to. Maybe she just lives
here. I wouldn't even be surprised if she turned out to be a vampire who happens to be a workaholic
— I mean, she stays in this hospital all night and by morning she's just gone. Vanished. Like she
was never here at all.
I looked around the first floor quickly — I wanted to be done and out of here already. But every
room I looked into only extended my stay. Dr. Nao was nowhere to be found. Wouldn't be the first
time my gut was right about something.
I let out a small breath and turned toward the elevator.
The ICU is on the third floor. I have never been to the third floor at night. Have to say, this feels
kind of illegal and exciting at the same time. The night shift is still new to me. For the past few days
I was doing half night shifts and it was so chill — would be better if Nao wasn't here though. Well,
today is my first full night shift.
Tired and exciting all at once.
Honestly? It beats the day already.
I pressed the up button and stared at the elevator door — a long metal door with a few scratches
here and there.
I let out a yawn. However exciting all of this might be, it's still unnatural for a human to be awake
and working at 2:20 in the morning. And the fact that I have started counting the scratches on the
elevator door tells me that the excitement only goes so far. My head still dozing from the lack of
sleep.
DING-DONG.
The elevator arrives and the doors slide open.
I looked up and stared straight into eyes that seemed to be elsewhere.
Oh. That's funny — it's me.
Mirrors and I don't usually get along this late at night. And this one had to find me in an elevator,
completely alone. Not sure if that's fate or God's idea of a joke.
Well, by the looks of it I turned out to be just fine on the surface. Flowy hair — I usually style it
with a two part but I want to grow it out, if Dr. Nao doesn't cut it all off before that is. Wayfarer
style glasses — my friend suggested them, and maybe the only reasonable purchase I've made in a
long time. And at last this white coat, which gives me the privilege of calling myself a doctor. But...
I let out a small breath.
Better turn around and enjoy the ride.
I turned around to face the doors.
DING-DONG.
The elevator doors slide open and the pitch black stares at me from the other side.
I look up — second floor.
But there is no one there. Nothing. Just darkness itself, standing where a person should be.
My heart may not be beating fast but every sense I have is suddenly awake. So without thinking I
pushed the third floor button and watched the doors close — nothing slowly getting replaced by
metal.
The elevator moves up again. With me.
But now also with a feeling that was hard to shake and even harder to understand.
Then the elevator doors slide open again — as if to make that feeling grow, as if whoever was
behind this joke was certainly not God.
Can anyone explain why this vast corridor — the one that leads to nothing but darkness no matter
how far you look — only has two red lights? Two. If I survive this I will personally find the person
who designed this floor and have a very serious conversation with them.
I stepped outside the elevator.
And all the sarcasm vanished.
My breath came heavier now. Every sense sharp, awake, almost offended at being asked to do this
at 2:30 in the morning. Somewhere down the corridor something beeped — steady, clinical, normal.
But in this light, in this silence, even normal sounded like a warning.
I stopped. My body went stiff. A cold sensation spread across my skin — even my hair felt alive
from that sound. But my heart — my heart went dead.
I wanted to turn around. I wanted to see what it was — not out of bravery, not even out of curiosity,
just to know. Just to confirm it was nothing. But my body had already made its own decision and
turning wasn't part of it. My neck wouldn't move. My feet wouldn't pivot. Every muscle locked in
place like they had all quietly agreed without consulting me.
I should go back. I could go back.
I didn't go back.
I stood there for a moment that felt longer than it had any right to be — frozen between the elevator
behind me and the darkness ahead, my body too stiff to retreat and too scared to advance.
Then slowly — almost against my own will — I kept walking.
Almost on my toes. Every small sound felt like an invitation to something I wasn't ready to meet.
My eyes fixed straight ahead, refusing to look at the shadows the red lights threw across the walls.
Not because I was scared.
But subconsciously — I didn't want anything on this floor to know I was here. Whatever that
anything might be
Somehow I kept walking and found myself reaching for the support of a door, my hand clinging to
the knob. The hospital I knew square by square now made me feel like a kid in the dark, praying
that God exists.
Then that feeling — the one growing on me — moved my neck as if it had never been stiff at all. As
if maybe God does exist.
Because there it was. Moonlight. Cutting through the red and the pitch black like it had been
waiting — bright and steady and impossibly comforting.
Feathers. Yeah — feathers. I felt light as one, floating toward the shine. Toward the moon.
I started walking toward the moonlight coming through the gap of a slightly open ICU door — a
thin line of silver in all that dark.
I stood there underneath it. The horror I had carried down that corridor fell away with each step
until there was nothing left of it.
My hand reached for the door.
The air was cold. Like...
Like it was fate after all.
I pushed the doors open.
The light blinded me as they swung wide and —
There was Dr. Nao. Standing in the ICU with the moonlight falling around her in the darkness.
Black hair in a ponytail. She doesn't look 28. The white coat — graceful, not because of what it
represents but because she wears it like it was made for her and nothing else.
And the red.
The red on her lips. Dripping to the red on her coat.
Well. It wouldn't be the first time my gut was right.
The red is blood.
And somehow — somehow — that strikes me as a relief.
My knees give in. I hit the ground hard, and my body joins my heart in its death.
What is death anyway.
My eyes reflect the moonlight as she turns and sees me — collapsed on the ground, out of relief, or
maybe the relief itself was the true horror all along.
This might be the first time our eyes have ever really met.
Is...
...is she crying?