Conner had just left Room 14 and made his way to the back courtyard of the hospital. He settled in one of the more forgotten corners, wedged between a rusting water-tube boiler and what looked like a bolted-down circuit breaker panel—both of which gave him a feeling of privacy.

  He was holding a corned beef sandwich he’d grabbed from the cafeteria for ￡11.

  But then, expecting fair prices at a hospital was like walking into a hardware store and being surprised they don’t sell sympathy. Exploitation was practically built into the floor tiles.

  Not that the school canteen was any better. An icepop—barely the size of a handgun magazine—went for ￡8 whenever it was made available in the summer.

  Leaning against the water boiler, Conner took a bite. Dry. Slightly sour. The bread was probably stale, though the microwave had softened it just enough to disguise the fact. “It’s okay,” he said aloud to no one, not disappointed so much as resigned.

  “Hello?”

  The voice made him glance up. A woman stood in front of him—a doctor, presumably. Lab coat, brunette hair pulled into a tight bun. Her skin was pale, not ghost-white but clearly starved of sunlight. She wore a flat, deadpan expression—the kind you’d expect from someone who’d since stopped pretending to care about their job.

  Conner straightened, caught slightly off. She looked vaguely familiar, though he couldn’t place her.

  “Uh… Hi?” he replied to the woman.

  She exhaled slowly, seemingly disappointed about something. “Are you a visitor?”

  Her eyes flicked over his casual clothes like she was making some quiet mental note about whether he belonged.

  “Yeah. I’m visiting someone.” He hesitated, then added, “You wouldn’t happen to be her doctor, would you?”

  There was a flicker of concern in his voice—he didn’t like the idea of someone that disinterested having anything to do with Carol’s treatment.

  “If she’s in the surgical area, then no. I only get assigned to those in the recovery wing,” She said.

  ‘God fucking damn it!’ Conner thought when hearing that. “Ohh, okay cool… Is this your spot or something?” Said Conner after realising that she was holding a packet of cigarettes and a lighter.

  “Sometimes I just come out here for my break,” the woman said, her voice dry but casual. “I don’t care that you’re here, but I’m going to start smoking—whether you like it or not. You sure you want to be around when that happens?”

  Conner shrugged, smirking. “Honestly, I’ve grown pretty fond of this little corner. So yeah, I won’t stop you.”

  That earned him a faint smile—barely there, but genuine. She leaned against the wall, pulled a cigarette from her coat pocket, and lit it with a flick of her lighter. The end glowed faintly as she took a short drag, then exhaled slowly.

  “So, who are you visiting?” she asked, eyes focused somewhere over the courtyard wall, avoiding the direction of the sunlight.

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  “A girl I know from school,” Conner replied, shifting slightly on the concrete ledge.

  She took another pull from her cigarette, then exhaled a dense cloud of smoke. “A school girl...” She mumbled, like the phrase jogged something in her mind. “She’s not in the Surgical Wing, or the Cardiac Unit, is she? Because I’ve got a patient named Carol. Teenager. Only school-aged girl in the entirety of this shithole, far as I know at least.”

  Conner’s expression didn’t change, but something twisted inside him.

  “I see...” he said, tone unreadable.

  ‘Probably better off unplugging whatever’s keeping Carol alive, then she’d have better odds at surviving that, than with this woman’,

  he thought grimly, masking the impulse behind a steady face. But apparently not well enough.

  The woman turned toward him, an eyebrow raised. “You doubt my ability to do my job?” she asked, a faint edge in her voice.

  He hesitated.

  “Treating a vampire’s not exactly hard,” she continued, tone slightly defensive but not hostile. “You hook her up to a filtration system, clean out the old blood, pump in fresh, uncontaminated blood, and that's it.” She said. “Machines do most of the work anyway these days. Hell, they do everything. Laundry. The news. Transport...” Her voice dropped to a near-whisper. “Lights…”

  That last one was nearly inaudible, like it wasn’t meant to be heard.

  Conner glanced at her more closely now. She didn’t look older than her mid-twenties, maybe thirty at the most. But she spoke with the weariness of someone who’d been around much longer.

  “Are those really such a bad thing?” he asked, taking another chew of his sorry excuse for a sandwich. “Machines, I mean?”

  She looked at him for a second before turning her gaze away again. “I’m old-fashioned, alright?” she muttered, face set in a stern pout as she puffed again. “It’s convenient, sure. But I prefer things that take a little more… effort.”

  Her hands jittered slightly as she held the cigarette—subtle, but noticeable.

  “Back in the late 2000s,” she said suddenly, “I loved this job. Fresh out of university, there was so much to goddamn do. But now?” She paused, letting the smoke trail from her lips. “Now it’s just easy. Everything’s online. Most of the work is automated. We still keep some paper records, but... that’s about it.”

  She didn’t seem to realise—or care—that she was venting to a teenager.

  To Conner, it sounded like boredom layered over burnout. She clearly still had fuel in to burn, but no road left to drive on.

  “You’re clearly not a bad doctor,” he said finally. “But the apathy in this rundown shithole is more contagious than any disease this place can treat.”

  She let out a laugh, low, surprised, and tinged with something bitter. “Can’t deny that…” she murmured, voice flat with a hint of resignation. It sounded like someone who’d lost the energy to pretend things might get better.

  “God…” she muttered under her breath. Then, after a beat, “Hey… sorry if I bored you.”

  “No, you’re fine. I shouldn’t have said anything,” Conner replied quickly, guilt twinging in his chest. He wasn’t used to making people feel like that, especially not strangers. “Just… take care of Carol. That’s all.”

  The woman gave him a small, faint smile. Not forced—just tried.

  Then, a muffled alarm buzzed from her lab coat pocket. She reached in and tapped something, silencing the noise with a soft ding.

  “Damn,” she sighed. “Break’s over.”

  She sounded almost disappointed, like she hoped for a few more minutes.

  “That’s it? That was, like, five minutes,” Conner said, blinking.

  “Yeah, this was more of an unofficial break,” she said, tucking the device back into her pocket. “If they notice I’m gone too long, they’ll start looking.”

  She turned her head slightly toward the courtyard, flinching when sunlight hit her face.

  She turned her head to the side and somewhat flinched at seeing the sunlight. “Uhhgg…” She groned, but moved forward regardless.

  “Thanks…” She said before moving back toward the main building.

  He didn’t even get her name.