My phone vibrated on the desk, the screen lighting up with a text message from Daniel.

*Please, Liz. They are outside my building.*

I closed my eyes and did not reply.

I could not.

The weight of the family’s expectations felt like a physical pressure on my chest.

I stood up, needing to move, needing to feel the cool air of the hospital corridors to keep myself grounded.

I decided to walk down to the basement archives to retrieve some old patient files for a case review.

It was a dark, quiet place where nobody would look for me.

The elevator ride down was silent, the elevator shaft smelling of grease and old dust.

When the doors opened on the basement level, the air was cooler, carrying the scent of damp concrete and stored paper.

The lights here were motion-activated, flickering on one by one as I walked down the narrow corridor.

I reached the archive room and pushed the heavy metal door open.

The rows of metal shelves stretched out into the shadows, filled with boxes of paper records from the decades before everything went digital.