(1)
Red Eye
John Spencer hated flying. A pale moon hung fat and heavy outside the window. Its brilliance illuminated wispy clouds that flew by as the plane cut through the miles yet left to home. He felt warm—too warm. With a sigh, he popped open the top two buttons of his mint-green, long-sleeved shirt.
His seat was cramped, pressing in on him. He sighed again, deeper this time, as the plane thundered toward home.
He turned to the window and flinched.
A stranger stared back at him.
His pulse spiked for a moment—but no, it was just his reflection, warped by the glass. Still, he barely recognized the man looking back. He had left home full of life, full of promise.
God, that was only two months ago now.
His thoughts came slow, thick, tugged at by the dry, recycled air in the cabin. When had he last slept—really slept? Not just passed out, not just closed his eyes for a few seconds of stolen rest.
The figure meeting his gaze in the reflection was a void. Grey-blue eyes glazed with indifference, and new lines of worry marred his youth. Once, he’d cared about his looks. Now, he barely recognized himself. The baldness didn’t suit him. Some of the guys back at the clinic could pull it off—it made them look tough, almost dangerous. But on John, it just made him look sickly, like he’d gone a few rounds with chemo and lost.
Not that any of them had been trying to look tough. They’d all just been trying to copy Doctor Menar.
John’s reflection twisted into a grimace. Menar, The man he had been. The man they all had been.
Before The Master.
Leave it be, John, he told himself. I’m safe now. No need to—
The thought shattered.
A blotch of darkness drifted across the moon, swallowing its pale light for the briefest of moments. A stain on the sky.
John’s breath hitched. Panic clawed at his throat, a cold pressure rising in his chest. But then—gone. Just a trick of the eye, a fleeting shadow. His face flushed as the fear ebbed, leaving behind a pulse of shame.
He swallowed hard and cast a quick glance around the cabin. No one seemed to notice his unease.
Good.
He forced himself to settle, but a thought coiled at the back of his mind, whispering.
I’m safe. I am safe. It’s over.
Though his mind insisted he was safe, John saw violence in every shifting shadow, every pocket of creeping darkness. The cabin was dim, broken only by the glow of reading lights flickering over scattered passengers as they flipped through books or fumbled through their bags.
He shivered.
Two rows up, a seatback TV screen blinked, casting ghostly flashes of color into the gloom. John turned away. The Walking Dead—a rerun, its shambling corpses lurching through ruined streets. Too close. Too much like where he’d just come from.
The low murmur of voices drifted from the aisle—two teen girls whispering, their words lost beneath the steady, ceaseless hum of engines as the Boeing 757 made its way across the Atlantic.
John exhaled, slow and uneven. He wished the pilot would turn the aisle lights back on.
Monrovia, Liberia.
Many of his friends had remained back in that hell. He felt for the ones who wouldn’t make it, and he was in awe of those willing to stay. The Ebola outbreak was a thing of nightmares, a horror story in its own right. But that wasn’t what sent John running across an ocean.
At least, not directly.
No, it was something worse.
There were darker things that moved in the nights of Monrovia.
It had started as a fever. A strange, burning sickness that took hold in the outer villages. Fear spread faster than the disease—panic, whispers. Superstition clawed at the nation, violently so.
Then The Master had come.
Or had it been there all along?
John didn’t know. Maybe no one did.
A yawn tugged at his face, the weight of exhaustion pressing down on him. Jennifer. She’d be waiting for him at JFK.
His eyelids grew heavy, sleep thickening in his skull, dragging him down. The hum of the plane faded, swallowed by memory.
His last waking thought was of a phone ringing.
The call from home.
The day everything changed.
(2)
Another Day in Paradise
John’s first sight was the cracked, gray ceiling tiles above him, their texture uneven, pockmarked with time. He blinked, shaking off the last wisps of sleep. Curran Hospital was long past its prime before, now with the epidemic it was barely holding on. The UN had built it some twenty years ago, right after the nation’s second civil war. Its white walls were stained with age, and the purple guidelines painted on the floor were all but gone, scuffed and worn down by years of hurried footsteps. The floors were scuffed and dusty; cleaning staff had more important things to do now.
Nearby, two other staffers lay restless in their bunks, shifting in uneasy sleep.
Six bunks belonged to the now dead, their owners claimed by fever, or worse. The remaining nine belonged to those still standing—still fighting.
John’s body ached from the rickety, camo-green bunk beneath him. A donation from the Liberian Militia. The thing creaked with every breath, every movement. Better than nothing, but no one had gotten a full night’s rest in a long time.
John’s mind and soul rebelled at the idea of getting up and about with his day. He’d just gotten off a double shift what only felt like moments ago and was up for another in all too soon. Nothing, not even the bustle of activity outside their makeshift dormitory would keep him from the realm of dreams.
“SAT call, mate. Wakey, wakey.”
The voice was coarse, tinged with a lazy British drawl, and came from somewhere above.
John groaned, rolling over just enough to throw a weak punch in the Brit’s general direction.
“Now, now, no call for that,” the man chided, dodging easily. “You’ve got some girly on the line here. Says she’s with the WHO.”
John cracked one eye open, still half-lost in the fog of sleep.
The Brit—Dawson—grinned down at him, all teeth and mischief. His voice took on a sing-song lilt.
“Well, if you’re not gonna take it, I will. She sounds like quite the catch. Might be fun, eh? Could do worse than a little, ah, diplomatic, bonding with the mucky-mucks over at the World Health Organization.”
Robert Dawson was an ass, and John didn’t like the emphasis he had put on the word diplomatic, his true meaning clear.
“Yeah, that’s just what we need, Robb—you going and pissing off the mainland,” John muttered, voice thick with sleep.
He sighed, dragging a hand down his face before sitting up properly. His joints ached. Every inch of him felt like it had been wrung out and left to dry in the sun.
As he rubbed the grit from his eyes, a stray thought surfaced—when had he started calling Europe ‘the mainland’ like all the others? It had slipped into his vocabulary somewhere along the way, just another piece of himself worn down by time, exhaustion, and being gone far too long from home.
“I’ve got charm, all sorts of it,” Dawson chuckled, though the smile barely touched his eyes. He was as dead tired as the rest—he just tried harder to hide it.
John stretched, rolling his shoulders. “Yeah, yeah. SAT phone?”
Robb shrugged and flopped onto his bunk with a groan. “You know Menar. SATs gotta stay in security ever since the last break-in.”
Of course. Menar and his rules.
John smoothed down his faded brown scrubs and turned toward the double doors leading to the cafeteria. “Sweet dreams. Guess I’ll see you next shift,” he called over his shoulder.
Lucky fucker, at least someone would be rested for the night’s shift.
A yawn clawed its way out of John’s throat as he reached into his scrubs, and dry gulped down one of his precious few remaining caffeine pills.
The hum of the hospital grew as he stepped through the doors. Crossing into the hospital proper,
Crossing into the hospital proper, his gaze landed on a crude painting scrawled above the sign to the morgue—an emerald-eyed red serpent. The sight stopped him in his tracks.
Anger flickered to life, hot and sharp—then just as quickly, it drained away. It wasn’t like it mattered anymore, they burned all the bodies anyway.
Yet another point of contention with the locals.
Most—not all, but enough—still refused to grasp how Ebola spread. Before the military took full control, they had kept their dead inside their homes for weeks, washing and touching the bodies at funerals, as tradition dictated.
A final farewell, a sacred rite.
And a death sentence for everyone who attended.
John quickened his pace, his footsteps echoing down the dim hallway. He rounded a corner at the red EXIT sign, where the stairwell to the third floor waited.
The stairs were the only way up that wasn’t blocked off by soldiers or sealed with makeshift barricades.
As he took the first steps, a voice drifted down from above.
“Hey, John. Heading to SAT?”
A woman stood on the next landing up, dark-haired, early thirties. The dim lighting cast deep shadows under her eyes—another exhausted soul in this place of the dying.
“Hi, Tiff. Yeah, mainland calling for me.”
John slowed, catching the vacant look in Tiffany’s eyes. She looked wrecked.
Rough night.
Working under Menar was never easy. Not anymore.
“Doc have you running out to the city again last night?” he asked, keeping his voice even.
Tiffany blinked, like she’d forgotten where she was for a second. Then she sighed, rubbing at her temples.
“Something like that.”
“Yeah,” Tiffany muttered, voice tight. “Some of the General’s guys caused trouble on a contact run. People got hurt.”
She leaned back from the railing, exhaustion pulling at her features. As she turned to go, wisps of dark hair trailed behind her.
“Contact runs are the worst,” she said, more to herself than to him. “But if we don’t keep track of every infected person, we’ll never stop this thing. You know?”
John nodded, but he didn’t answer.
Because deep down, he wasn’t sure anything could stop it now.
“Don’t see why we need the soldiers though,” Tiffany continued. “Seems like they’re just making things worse these days.”
“Yeah.”
John’s response was empty, automatic.
Complaining about the soldiers had become the new pastime among the staff. He got it—really, he did. The General’s men had rough hands and short tempers, and more than once, they’d made things worse instead of better.
But John, for one, was grateful.
Without them, the mobs would be inside the hospital instead of clawing at the gates.
Tiffany reached the top of the second flight, hesitated, then turned back down toward John.
“Well, if you see Pete up there, make sure he knows tonight’s dinner is MRE surprise.”
Her voice was lighter, but there was no humor in it. Just exhaustion wrapped in routine. As she passed him, she patted his arm—a brief touch, her fingers cold against his skin.
“Maybe I’ll see you before next shift?”
John glanced at her, noting the way her eyes lingered, searching his face for something.
“Yeah,” he said, softer this time. “Maybe.”
Then she was gone, her footsteps fading into the stairwell’s hollow silence.
“Yeah, maybe,” John muttered again, this time under his breath.
He turned the corner and pushed forward, climbing the last few steps to the third floor. Somewhere below, he heard the heavy thud of the stairwell door shutting—Tiffany heading back toward the staff dormitory.
She was attractive enough, and they got along fine. Once, he might have even entertained the idea.
But lately, something about her grated on him. Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was something deeper.
Not that it mattered. Jennifer was waiting for him back in London.
The third floor was a bustling mecca of soldiers and white-coated doctors. This was where the full-time staff lived—where they ate, slept, and rarely, if ever, left. John, on the other hand, was just a temp doc from Doctors Without Borders, which meant he was relegated to the dormitories with the rest of the internationals, expats, and volunteers.
He could request a change. Doctor Menar would approve it in a heartbeat. But then he’d have to start joining the man’s little inner circle on contact runs.
And John wasn’t sure he was ready for that.
Soldiers stood like statues outside supply closets, hazard room check-ins, even at the nurses’ stations—silent sentinels keeping order in a place where chaos was always clawing at the edges. One of them, a young, dark-skinned man with light stubble, stepped in front of John as he passed through the doors into the hall.
John didn’t bother speaking.
He just pulled his WHO ID from his pocket and handed it over, walking past as the scanner hanging from the soldier’s neck let out a sharp, confirming beep.
The third floor was different.
The floors were spotless, the rooms pristine, every surface wiped down with meticulous care. No piles of soiled linens crammed into corners. No dark stains seeping through the ceiling tiles like bruises.
A man in solid-gray overalls trundled by, pushing a heavy cart stacked with cleaning sprays and a mop. A reminder of the difference between up here and everywhere else.
They still care about the little things up here, John thought. Not like the rest of us. We’re just fighting to stay awake. Wonder how they do it.
John soon found himself standing outside the SAT room—though calling it a room was generous. It had once been a janitor’s closet, before the army stripped out the shelves and welded metal grates over the doorway. Now, a thick, heavy-iron padlock secured the grated door in place. John had to knock four times before the inner wooden door swung open. A thinly decorated, grey-haired, head pushed its way through the crack made in the door—Peter Holloway.
“Hey, Pete. Tiff says it’s MRE surprise tonight.”
Pete blinked. “Hmm. K. That’s nice.”
The room behind him was dark, but for the soft, blinking lights of the SAT and radio terminals—blue, green, red, pulsing like dying stars.
A long pause stretched between them before John tilted his chin toward the consoles.
“So… call for me? From the mainland.”
“Oh, yeah. Keep it short,” Pete muttered, rubbing at his face like he was trying to wake up. “Menar says calls gotta be five minutes or less unless they’re pre-approved.”
He disappeared behind the door, and a series of clangs and rustling followed as he undid the chain locks and bolts on the inside. A second later, the door swung open with a loud, grating squeal.
Pete stood there, tapping his foot impatiently.
John started forward—then hesitated. A shiver ran down his spine. In the dim, flickering light of the com security room, Pete’s face had an odd look to it—a twitching half-smile, just barely there. Something off about it.
For a second, John swore the man looked damn near manic in the weir light of the com security room. He forced out a chuckle, trying to shake the unease.
Like I’m the one making this take longer. You were the one who insisted on this job in the first place.. Takes the best gig on base, then acts like it’s a goddamn burden.
John pushed the thought down and gave a tight smile. “Thanks, Pete. Won’t be long.”
Pete just grunted and swung the metal-reinforced gate shut behind him.
Inside, the room was stuffy, thick with the cloying stink of sweat and spoiled food. The air was heavy, almost rancid. With the door closed, the only light came from the faint glow seeping through the grate—and the blinking, multicolored LEDs scattered across the consoles, filling the cramped space with eerie flashes of blue, green, and red.
“Lights?” John asked, scanning the dim room.
From a shadowed corner, Pete’s voice rasped out. “Phone’s to your right.”
John turned, barely making out Pete’s slouched form at the desk, rocking back and forth in his chair. Each sway sent a soft, rhythmic creak through the stillness.
It made the hairs on the back of John’s neck stand up.
He swallowed.
“…Thanks.”
John fumbled through the cramped space, feeling his way toward the SAT phone. It took him a full minute to find it by the dim red glow of the radio console, his fingers brushing against cables and cold metal before they finally closed around the bulky device.
It was like any other phone—just bigger, thicker, clunkier.
It screamed retro.
The kind of thing he’d seen in old ’80s and ’90s sitcoms—Seinfeld, Friends. Hell, it even had a pull-out antenna jutting from the top, like some relic of a time before smartphones.
“So how’s this work, then?” He turned toward Pete, holding up the phone. “First time using it. I was told I had a call waiting.”
Pete barely moved. “Pull the antenna out. Hit the red button. Then green when it starts flashing.”
John followed the instructions, but hesitated before pressing the final button.
“…Can I get a moment?”
The request came out stiffer than he intended.
A shiver crawled down his spine, and he swore he could feel Pete’s eyes on him in the darkness. Watching. Normally, he wouldn’t give a damn about someone else being in the room during a call. But today felt… off.
First Tiffany had gotten his skin crawling, now Pete had the hairs on his neck standing on end.
Pete didn’t react. He just sat there in the shadows, silent. Unmoving.
What a complete and utter ass—
The phone crackled.
“John? Can you hear me, John?”
Jennifer’s voice. Thin. Warped with static. The interference scraped through the line, distorting the words.
“Yeah, it’s great to hear from you.” He didn’t even try to keep the grin from his voice. “Nice surprise. What’s up?”
“Thank God I finally got through.” She sounded relieved—but there was something else beneath it. Strain. Urgency. “I’m not even supposed to be calling, but I had to see if I could get to you.”
John chuckled, keeping it light. “Well, I know you miss me, but we’re halfway there. Just another two months, and I’ll meet you in London before heading back home.”
“No, it’s not tha—” She cut off mid-sentence, hesitating, then softened. “Well… it is. But we’ve been getting some strange reports from your area.”
John frowned as Jennifer continued, her voice low, almost whispering as if not wanting to be overheard.
“Head office is getting worried about the latest strain developing in the villages between Monrovia and Sierra Leone.”
John shot a glance back toward Pete, then forced himself to shift gears—excitement draining, replaced with clinical focus. Doctor mode.
“What do you mean?” His tone was measured, steady. “I’ve been on the team running analysis, and we haven’t seen anything off. Pretty standard strain, all things considered.”
He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, already running through the numbers in his head.
“Yeah, it looks bad, but only because it’s blown past the standard mortality rating. You know how it is out here—high mortality is just how life works in this region. If this same strain broke out in the States? We’d be looking at—what? Forty-five percent mortality at most?”
She should know this. Hemorrhagic fever is practically her damn specialty. Something’s wrong.
“I know, John. But think about it—out of all the recorded cases of the Zaire virus, in all of history, not a single Ebola outbreak has ever passed the 300-death mark**.** Not once.”
John’s stomach tightened.
Jennifer pressed on.
“And now? Now, in the span of three months, we’re staring down nearly eight thousand dead—with even more projected. That’s a clear change in pattern. In behavior.”
Her voice wavered. “We don’t know how else it could mutate. And the last three weeks of reports from your station? They’ve been in direct conflict with the Burven Clinic’s findings down in New Guinea.”
John’s grip on the SAT phone tightened.
Conflict? That didn’t make sense. Their data was being triple-checked, vetted against WHO standards. There shouldn’t be contradictions
“Menar thinks we’ve got a handle on it now,” John said, rubbing his chin as he thought back over the past few days. “I don’t know what the people at Burven got wrong, but I honestly believe Menar on this,” he added, voice dropping to a whisper. Pete’s snoring still rumbled from the corner, but John wasn’t taking chances.
“We’re still being run ragged here, but a good third of our patients aren’t even sick—they’re coming in from injuries.” He hesitated, then added, “Local militia’s gotten a bit… overzealous.”
Jennifer’s response was immediate, sharp.
“If that’s true, then come back.”
John stiffened.
She sounded exactly like she had the day she’d stormed into their apartment with a half-starved stray cat, demanding it stay.
“Besides,” she pressed on, voice firm, “that’s part of what’s got us worried here. The rate of infection should be increasing, even with all our efforts. Not decreasing.”
John frowned. “That’s a good thing, though, right? I mean, that’s what we’re here for, Jenn.”
“Let me finish.”
Jennifer’s tone brooked no argument.
John clamped his mouth shut.
“It’s not behaving as expected.” Her voice had dropped now, quieter, edged with something that made his pulse tick up. “And on top of that, we’re worried about our staff in the field. It’s not just the military acting up—some of the locals are using this chaos to cause trouble. Hell, John, some of them think we’re the ones making people sick. To make matters worse—and don’t spread this around—we’re getting reports of a possible warlord on the rise out there.”
“I haven’t heard anything about that. And I’m actually here, Jenn. You’re not**.**”
John’s face grew warm. Jennifer meant well, she always did. But this—this—was exactly what she did best. Micromanaging. It had been cute at first, even endearing. But he’d long since outgrown that particular charm.
Jennifer, of course, barreled on.
“You know you want this, John. Come back. Work with us for a few years, and you’ll land a fellowship anywhere you want. Hopkins, Mayo, hell—even Harvard might take you after that.”
She barely paused for breath before continuing, her words picking up speed.
“I’ve already run it by my department chair—he’d be thrilled to have you on the team. Apparently, he was on your publication defense committee for that article you wrote last year—about viral trends in pathogenic mutagens?”
John let out a slow breath, staring at the blinking console lights as her voice grew more animated, rising with the certainty of someone who had already decided the best course of action.
And she expected him to follow.
Not that he didn’t want to. Her reasons were valid. And God, the thought of getting a normal night’s sleep again…That alone was tempting.
“Say I agreed—what about Menar? What about the others here?”
John hated it when Jennifer was right. The job she was offering was too good to be true. A clear path. A fresh start. Would anyone really blame him for leaving?
Most of them wanted out. The thought settled deep, heavy in his chest.
As the thoughts sifted through him, John knew he would turn Jennifer down. He had been through the eye of the storm and had seen the worst the disease could offer. He damn well would stay to see the finish.
Jennifer’s voice came through the static. “What about them?”
“You haven’t been here, Jenn. We lost a lot of people those first few weeks.”
He tried not to think about it too much as he spoke. They were all used to the death by now—but those first weeks, those first colleagues falling sick, one after the other… That still stuck him.
Jennifer sighed. “You don’t owe them your life, John.” Her voice softened. “Look, it’s up to you. Take it or don’t. But I really think you should get out of there. We could work together. You’d be safe here.”
“I’ll think about it, ok.”
“That’s all I ask. You’ve got until Friday to decide—that’s when the next supply run’s due in your area.”
“Alright, Jenn. I said I’ll think about it. No promises.”
“Good.” A small pause. Then, her tone lightened. “So, now that that’s out of the way—how are you? It’s been too long.”
John smirked faintly. “Not all that bad, tired. We’re getting by.”
“I get that. But how are you?”
“I—”
His words froze.
The line crackled, then burst into static.
“Jenn? Jenn, can you hear me?”
Silence.
John scowled, tapping the receiver. “Pete, something’s up with the phone.”
A gurgling snort came from Pete’s corner.
Figures. At least someone was getting sleep around here. Just never seems to be me.
John set the phone back in its charger and made his way out of the stifling room. As he stepped into the hallway, his eyes flicked to the clock.
Ten minutes. Too short. Plenty of time to grab something from the mess though, maybe even relax before his shift started. For a moment, he considered trying to nap. But the thought of waking up again left a sour taste in his mouth.
Food it is then.
(3)
Doctor Menar
had just finished wolfing down his apple cinnamon oatmeal and a side scone when Doctor Menar slid into the seat across from him.
“John. Shift starting soon?”
Doctor Gregory Menar’s voice was like brass dipped in bourbon—deep, smooth, and just sharp enough to cut through a crowded room. It was the first thing John had noticed about him when they met. The second was his size. Menar stood a full eight inches taller than John, broad-shouldered, built like a man who had never backed down from a fight. His buzzed hair left only a shadow on his neatly bronzed skin—a tan earned from his days outside Curran Hospital, working among the locals in Monrovia.
John could tell, even at a glance—he hadn’t slept.
His clothes were dust-streaked, wrinkled, his eyes bloodshot against the brown of his irises.
John swallowed another bite of apple-crusted oatmeal. “Yes, sir. Just another thirty minutes and I’m on the clock for another ten.”
Menar nodded. “Good man. Keep up the fight.”
The words stumbled slightly, like he was pushing them out by habit. He leaned forward, fishing an apple from his pocket and taking a bite—slow, deliberate.
Then his gaze sharpened.
“So. What’s it going to be, then?”
John blinked. “Sorry?”
“The job. Back mainland,” Menar rolled his eyes, waving a hand. “I spoke with Doctor Lisbeth before she spoke with you…” He let the words hang in the air before adding, “So. What’s it to be, then?”
John hesitated. Then lied.
“I really don’t know yet.”
He did know. He was staying. But saying it out loud would give it weight—would make it real.
Menar stared at him for a beat, then took another bite of the apple—this one so hard, he nearly split it in two. Without warning, he bit straight through the core, crunching down on the seeds like they were nothing.
“You should go.”
The words came flat. Final.
“It’s really for the best.”
John froze.
What the hell? This, coming from the ‘never give up, never surrender’ guy?
What the fuck did Jenn say to him?
“Of course you should. It is really for the best, ”Menar nodded with each syllable, as though hammering his words into place, locking them down.
John stared.
The man’s eyes had dulled, the gleam of sharp intellect flickering like a candle struggling against a draft. And his pupils—were they wobbling in the light?
“Umm, I don’t know,” John said, raising an eyebrow at the esteemed doctor.
What the hell was happening here?
A minute ago, Menar had been himself—laid back, but intense. Now, his shoulders were squared tight, his chest pushed forward as if he were bracing for something unseen.
John tried to shake it off. Maybe he’s just exhausted.
“I figured I was still needed,” John said carefully. “We’re not done until the last patient checks out, right?”
The words weren’t his—they were Menar’s, spoken during orientation on his first day. Maybe hearing them again would pull him back, shake off whatever weird fugue he had slipped into.
Menar blinked.
“We will get by.” His voice was smooth, too smooth, like it had been practiced. “After all, it is like I told you all last week. We have just about got it beat now, friends.”
“Are you feeling alright, Doctor Menar?”
A shadow of emotion flashed across Menar’s face, and he smiled a too wide of a grin.
“Yes, yes, but of course. I’m just tired is all. Whatever your choice may be – I’m happy to have had you along this long, John.”
And just like that—Menar’s shoulders relaxed, his expression softened, and the tired warmth returned to his gaze.
Like nothing had happened.
“Thanks…” John said, uneasily.
Doctor Menar stood as to leave, but turned back as he pushed his chair in. “You know, we have another contact run to the city tonight, Doctor Spencer.” Menar’s pupils widened again—flat, dull, distant. His voice cracked. “You really should come, Doctor Spencer. It would be for the best. I do not think you have been out on one yet, no?
Doctor Spencer? Don’t think he’s called me that since my first day in.
Goosebumps crawled up John’s arms. The hair on the back of his neck stood at attention. A warning bell rang deep in his skull—low and persistent, humming in his ears.
Keep it together, John. You’re just tired.
He forced a nod, even as his muscles coiled with the urge to leave.
“Sure, sur—look, sorry Doctor Menar, I’ve got to get going.” John mumbled the words through tight lips, and he stood, awkward, forced, with food unfinished. “Shift starting and all.”
Menar face held no reaction even as he responded. “Fine, that’s all good.,” Menar said, his tone sliding back to something calm, less stilted.
It only made John’s stomach tighten further.
“Get some sleep when you’re done though.”
Menar’s eyes softened again, his voice ran smooth, as if the other version of him had never existed.
“The next group is heading out in twenty-two hours. Get some rest after this shift and meet up in the atrium.”
John barely heard the words. He muttered a vague agreement and made for the exit. His shift didn’t start for another thirty minutes, but it didn’t matter. He wanted—needed—to be somewhere loud, somewhere real. The constant lack of sleep was getting to him, making him see snipes in the wood and a stranger in his mentor’s voice.
Right now, even the sick wards sounded like a relief.