It was a quiet afternoon in Morrison's Hospital, Macaulay Branch — the kind of lull that comes right before visiting hours. The usual hum of voices was low, the corridors mildly echoing with footsteps and intercom buzzes.
Nurse Helen stood near the reception desk, reading a file of patients and the medicine she was to hand to them at departure. Her eyes were half-lidded with boredom, barely registering the world around her.
Then the automatic glass doors slid open.
She glanced up, and her hands suddenly froze. The file fell from her grasp and time seemed to stutter.
A man she thought she recognized walked into the lobby like a phantom from another life. Tall, composed, draped in a tailored dark coat over a steel-gray shirt, and eyes so unreadable they might've been carved from obsidian. His shoes didn't squeak. His steps didn't rush. He moved as if the entire hospital was his, and somehow, it felt true.
