"Deep breaths, Eli, deep breaths," he whispered to himself
The room was eerily quiet. Not the haunted silence of somewhere long abandoned—but the thin, shallow hush of a place recently vacated. The kind that still held breath. And that silence was worse than the screams.
Eli leaned against the cool wall inside the hospital room, eyes scanning. His chest still rose and fell like he'd run a marathon, but his brain was finally catching up.
"Assess. Diagnose. Plan. Intervene. Evaluate," he murmured. His eyes swept the room like they'd been trained to do.
Check vitals. Check the scene. Locate exits. Inventory everything.
One bed was made. Sheets crisp and untouched. The other, rumpled, with a smear of brownish-red across the pillow and a drip trail leading to the floor. Someone had been here and had left in a hurry or had been taken. He didn't look too closely. He couldn't afford to
Eli kept low and crouched as he moved deeper in. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic, sweat, and something more metallic, not quite the metallic smell of blood.
.
He found A box of gloves on the table, a curtain half-torn from its rod, and a discarded saline bottle on the floor. But underneath the bed, nestled in the shadow between a bedside cabinet and a tipped-over IV pole—
A bag.
He cautiously approached it and tugged it free. A Black backpack. It rattled softly with supplies.
His fingers moved quickly, opening zippers, checking pouches.
Two water bottles, both sealed. A packet of crackers, crushed but still edible, a flashlight, a bit scuffed but whole, a plain black shirt, some masks, and a slightly used roll of medical tape.
Jackpot.
His stomach twisted. He hadn't realized how dry his throat was until the water touched his lips. Just a sip. Enough to clear his head.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and exhaled, low and slow.
Okay, Focus.
This room hadn't been ransacked. There were no signs of struggle. No claw marks. No shattered furniture. Just that bloody pillow—and the echo of someone who didn't make it.
The mop shaft was still tied to his back. He checked the knot, reinforced it with Medical tape, and slid the baton into the bag's outer pocket.
Then crossed to the wall where the evacuation map hung. Warped slightly with heat, edges curling. But still readable.
Third floor. West wing. Emergency stairwell, two doors down.
His eyes lingered on the sublevel routes. Morgue, Maintenance, Ambulance bay. Maybe a path out, maybe not.
Didn't matter. He'd find out.
He pulled a pillowcase off the clean bed and tore it into strips to wrap around his blistered palms. The rust from the scaffold had already stained his skin. One more fall, and he'd lose more than skin.
A breath, A pause.
He listened.
Nothing. The hallway beyond the room was still. Too still. No moaning, no dragging footsteps, no shriek.
But stillness didn't mean safety.
Not anymore.
"Ok, Eli, deep breaths, let's think this through."
He adjusted the weight of the bag on his shoulder, cracked the door open a few inches, and peeked out.
Dim red emergency lights pulsed along the corridor. Each flicker threw jagged shadows across the walls. The floor was scattered with overturned trays and scattered gauze, but no bodies, no blood.
Just silence.
He stepped out, careful not to let the door click shut behind him.
The hallway smelled like plastic and ozone, like machines left running too long without monitoring them. Somewhere in the distance, an automatic door stuttered open and closed, stuck in a loop.
Eli crept forward.
His boots barely made a sound on the linoleum floor, the rubber soles muffled under every careful step. He passed a cart of supplies—half of it stripped, the rest untouched. Gauze rolls. Syringes were still in sterile wrap. Someone had left in a hurry. Or they never made it this far.
He quickly stuffed some of the rolls of gauze rolls and syringes into the backpack.
A pair of trauma shears glinted from the lower tray of the cart. Eli snatched them without hesitation and clipped them to the strap of his bag. Next to it, a sealed packet of alcohol wipes and a half-used bottle of antiseptic wash. Into the pack, they went.
Keep moving. Keep gathering. Stay quiet.
On the lowest tier of the cart, he spotted a folded emergency blanket still wrapped in plastic. The kind meant for shock, thin and metallic. It barely weighed anything, but in the cold or when hiding… it might buy him time.
His hands paused over a stethoscope. He hesitated. Habit said, take it—muscle memory from a different life.
Too much noise, too little use.
He left it.
Another step, and something crunched underfoot. He froze. Looked down.
A plastic ID badge. Smeared with something dark, but the name was still visible. Dr. G. Mendoza. A photo beneath, smiling, bright-eyed. Eli looked away.
But the face burned in his mind.
"Navarro, grab a mask—don't make me chase you down the hallway again."Her voice had been light but firm, teasing with that practiced kind of ease only an ER doc could manage during chaos.
He'd rolled his eyes, tugged the mask on."I was literally just drinking water."
"And now you're literally covering your droplets, congratulations."She'd winked and pushed past him, already moving on to the next patient, a blur of efficiency and caffeine.
Back then, her badge had bounced against her coat as she walked. Same photo. Same smile.
Now, that badge lay on the ground, streaked in brown, abandoned in silence.
Eli clenched his jaw, picked it up, and slid it into a side pocket of his bag. Not for use. Just… not to leave behind.
He passed the nurses' station, bag snug against his back, steps quiet but quick, every hallway stretching too long in the pulsing red emergency lights.
As he rounded the corner, his foot caught on something soft.
Eli staggered, one hand shooting to the wall to steady himself, heart suddenly thudding in his throat.
He looked down. He wished he didn't
An arm. Pale, bloated, and stained maroon-black. It stuck out from behind a half-drawn privacy curtain, fingertips curled, nails broken.
His breath caught. The curtain moved slightly, tugged by the draft—or maybe not.
Behind it, a wheelchair toppled sideways, half-buried in a tangle of tubing and bloodied gauze. And there, what was left of a body.
Slumped low, the torso was caved in like something had crushed it from above. Ribs snapped through the fabric of the uniform like broken umbrella spokes, and a cavity in the chest glistened where organs used to be. Torn, not precisely—gnawed. Like a scavenger had burrowed inward with teeth, not thought.
The head was tilted back against the wall. The mouth hung open in a frozen scream, jaw dislocated. No eyes left to stare.
There was no spatter. No sign of a struggle. It didn't look like an attack—it looked like something had found this person, and fed.
His stomach flipped. He turned away fast, biting down bile, throat dry and burning.
STAIR ACCESS — WEST EXIT — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLYThe faded red text glared back from the metal door. Almost there.
Two steps. He reached for the handle—
Then.
A sound.
Soft, Muffled.
Not from the stairwell.
Behind him.
The shuffle of something moist and heavy against the tile. Then—silence.
Then again. Closer.
Drag.Drag.Pause.
Eli froze, breath tight in his chest.
Another noise. A wet exhale, like air forced through mucus. Then a low, gurgling croak. Not a voice. Just sound—raw and instinctive.
No clever stalking. No trap. Just… hunger.
He didn't look.
Didn't blink.
His hand closed on the handle, twisted. The door creaked open, and he slipped through, slow and silent.
Only when it latched softly behind him did he let out the breath he'd been holding.