The fluorescent lights hummed above me, casting everything in a sickly white glow. I’d been an RN intern for six months, and most nights felt exactly like this: invisible, exhausted, and somehow still hungry despite the instant ramen I’d eaten four hours earlier.
Room 412 was quiet when I walked past.I stopped.
Something made me pause at the doorway. Maybe it was the stillness, or the way the afternoon sun had already vanished from the window.
Mr. Carter was sitting up in bed, staring out at the darkened city below, his thin hands folded on top of the blanket. He was 75, skeletal, and dying slowly from complications nobody really talked about anymore.
« So painful, » he whispered softly.
« Mr. Carter? »
I stepped inside.
« Can’t sleep? » I asked softly.
