The morning following the night came with a delayed brightness as the first few rays of the winter daybreak greeted the hazy, cloud-stained indigo sky.
Early rising birds chirped, beginning their calls as a sole figure walked down the deserted hallways of the clinic, adrift as a fallen leaf in the wind.
Despite the break of dawn, the light it imparted was rather feeble, compelling the surgeon to traverse the hallways in silence with an oil lamp in hand.
He was a habitual early riser, not out of a good habit but a rather pitiful one.
Most nights, his slumber arrived, fitful and fleeting as sand in fist. Nightmares plagued him, a reminiscence of a time long gone. The scream, the blood-chilling bang of a gun, the click of the trigger being pulled. All of it never allowed him a full night of rest.
