Estella was in her cell, Louka by her side. They were both sleeping, I think. Louka, at least, looked alive.

I was somehow lucky to avoid this torture, and the guilt panged in my chest. We were supposed to get out together, all of us. When the plan fell apart, I put my best mask on and told them that I’d been coerced. That I didn’t want to escape. That I’d only gone along because I cared about being with Estella.

They believed me, I think. The Doctor told himself I couldn’t be a willing participant in rebellion, after all. That would reflect poorly on his control.

So while they lay in cells, I walked freeer. Free enough to clean examination rooms and pretend I didn’t know what happened in them.

The nausea hit harder. I gripped the counter, fighting it down. I took off my blue gloves to find my hands raw.

I took a good look at them. This time I turned on the lights. The skin was red and bordering on blistered, like I’d been scrubbing or gripping too hard. I’d always worn gloves while cleaning, though.

Everything felt distant lately. Like I’d lost control of my narrative. I’d go to start a task and find out I’d already done it and forgotten. Dr. Chen told me it was stress.

I needed to sit down before I collapsed right here among the examination and became another subject for study.

I could go to Dr. Chen’s office to rest. He understood if I took a break for a few minutes.

I left the cleaning supplies on the counter and walked towards his office. Every step was wobbly, and I had both palms on the wall to keep me stable. The floor felt like it could just tilt and drop into darkness, and the hallway was unnaturally long.

‘Just a little bit further’ was my mantra, even as I realized my eyes were tearing up.

No, I couldn’t collapse here.

There was a supply closet closer. I could duck in there, sit down on the floor for a minute or five and get my bearings. Nobody would find out I’d become this weak.

I went for the handle.

Locked. Like every single fucking thing in Medical.

I walked a little more to the next closet. I tried the next door, my hand shaking so badly I could barely hold onto the handle.

The smell hit instantly.

More organic than bleach, like burnt plastic with something moldy. My gorge rose.

This wasn’t a closet, but a storage room. I should’ve read the sign but who needs to read when you’re about to collapse, right?

On a gurney against the wall was a–

Oh God.

Holy–God oh god oh god.

A body.

Well, to be more specific, a corpse. It was so fundamentally wrong that my brain struggled to process what I was seeing.

It was gray and shriveled like something sucked all the moisture out and left a dry husk behind. The skin looked like wrinkled parchment paper, sagging off the bones that jutted at wrong angles. The limbs were twisted violently and unnaturally.

There was a plastic bag over the head. It was clear, tied at the neck. Inside I could see vague features, distorted and terrible.

The neck was the worst. I staggered backward. It was peeled, not cut or torn. Peeled like something had wrapped around it and stripped away layers of flesh. Raw tissue stuck out underneath, dark and dried. The pattern looked like rope burn but deeper and worse.

I didn’t want to think. This was what The Doctor oversaw and what I’d been cleaning up after, what I’d been complicit in by my silence and my survival.

This was why medical was different than any other place of the facility, and this was why it was the one section they were expanding.

The room tilted. I reached out to grab the doorframe but gave up mid motion. Darkness was better. The floor rushed up to greet my cheek.