POV: Aurora
The elevator stops on the fifteenth floor with a "ding" that is too cheerful for my taste.
The door opens and the smell of disinfectant hits me like a wall. Alcohol, chlorine, something metallic that I associate with blood, even though I don't see any. I close my hand around my ID card, as if the plastic could protect me from the white room at the end of the hallway.
"Medical check-up – Vega. Instruction recorded by Management."
The text of the email burns in my memory. I wasn't the one who requested the appointment, but here I am.
I walk to the infirmary.
A nurse in a white cap looks up from her computer as soon as I approach.
"Aurora Vega?" she asks, before I say anything.
I stop.
"Yes."
"Come in, please. We were expecting you."
That doesn't help my nerves.
The room is small, too clean. A stretcher, a chair, a desk with a screen. Everything smells like something that wants to erase any other smell. It doesn't quite succeed. There's a faint trace of someone else's sweat, hot plastic, reheated coffee.
I sit on the stretcher because I don't know where else to put my body.
The nurse puts the blood pressure cuff on my arm.
"It's routine," she says. "Blood pressure, pulse, temperature. Nothing out of the ordinary."
Nothing out of the ordinary. I laugh inside.
The cuff inflates, squeezing harder than I remember. My heart is already racing; now, with the pressure on my arm, I feel every beat in my fingers.
The machine beeps. She frowns slightly.
"Your blood pressure is a little low for your age," she says. "And your pulse is a little fast.
Did you have breakfast?
"Coffee and bread," I reply.
"Coffee doesn't count as breakfast," she says, but not in a joking tone. "Have you been feeling dizzy?"
I think of the stairs, the hallway, the bus.
"Yes," I admit. "Twice. Well, three times."
"Aha," she murmurs.
She puts the thermometer under my tongue. The plastic tastes chemical. I close my eyes for a second. The thermometer beeps and the nurse looks at the screen.
"A slight temperature," she says. "Nothing serious, but you're not perfect either."
Perfect. I never was, but this is different.
"The doctor will see you," she adds. "Wait a moment."
She leaves.
I'm left alone with the hum of the lights and the sound of the air conditioning. My feet don't quite reach the floor; I swing them slightly, like I did as a child at the neighborhood doctor's office.
The door opens again.
A woman in her forties enters, wearing a white coat and her hair pulled back in a practical bun. She's carrying a tablet in her hand. Her badge read "Dr. Herrera."
"Aurora," she says. "I'm Dr. Herrera. Shall we talk about what brings you here?"
"Direction," I think. But I nod.
"I'm told you've been experiencing dizziness," she says, sliding her finger across the screen. "Since when?"
"It started yesterday," I reply. "I felt dizzy in the hallway. It happened again today." And... the smells are really strong. Everything. The bus, the people, the office.
She looks up for a second.
"Where do you work?" she asks.
"On the thirty-first floor. Risk analysis," I say. "Project Seraphim."
I don't know why I add the last part. Maybe because I feel like Seraphim is stuck to me like a second skin.
The doctor makes a slight gesture, as if she recognizes the name but decides not to pursue it.
"Have you had this before?" she asks.
I think.
"Not like this," I reply. "I've always been anxious, but this is different. It's as if my body reacts first, and my head has to come up with an excuse later."
She nods slowly.
"Do you sleep?" she asks.
"Poorly," I admit. "Weird dreams, I wake up sweating."
"Regular menstrual cycles?" she adds, without looking up from her tablet.
I feel the blood rush to my face, as if that question were more intimate than all the others put together.
"Not much," I say. "They've always been a disaster. No one paid much attention to them as long as... they worked."
She writes something down.
"It says here 'generalized anxiety in treatment, functional,'" she reads from my file. "Are you still on medication?"
"No," I reply. "I stopped a year ago. The office changed doctors and... no one followed up."
A muscle twitches in her jaw, as if she's not surprised.
"Okay," she says finally. "Let's do a basic checkup. We already have your vital signs. I'd like to order a complete blood count and a biochemical profile to see how you're doing with iron, glucose, and so on. Stress, poor diet, changes in environment... all of that can take a toll."
"What about the smells?" I ask. "It's ridiculous, I know, but... it's as if someone has turned up the volume on the world."
The doctor hesitates for a second.
"Some people are more sensitive than others to sensory stimuli," she says. "It can be accentuated by stress. But no, it's not ridiculous. It just means your body is speaking louder. Let's listen to what it has to say."
I'm not entirely convinced, but at least she's not laughing.
The nurse returns with a tray and a needle. She ties a band around my arm. My veins are easy to find; I've always been one of those people who can get their blood drawn right away.
I look away. The smell of alcohol mixes with something warm and metallic. For a second, the world loosens around me.
"Take a deep breath," says the doctor.
I do.
The needle goes in. A prick, nothing more. I've been through worse. Even so, my body reacts as if it were more than just a test: my heart races, my skin prickles.
The nurse removes the tube, applies cotton wool, and sticks on tape.
"Done," she says.
The doctor puts her tablet aside.
"Aurora," she says, more slowly. "Your vital signs aren't catastrophic. But they're not typical of someone who's 'just stressed' either. I'm not going to sugarcoat it."
I look at her.
"What does that mean?" I ask.
"It means that something in your body is functioning at a different speed," she replies. "It could just be the transition to a new rhythm, or it could be something else. I'm not going to guess without the results. For now, I can tell you this: you're not imagining what you're feeling."
"Something in your body is functioning at a different speed."
I commit it to memory, word for word.
"What do I do in the meantime?" I ask.
"Eat, hydrate, sleep when you can," she says. "And observe. Does it always happen, or does it get worse in certain places, with certain people? If you notice a pattern, write it down. It's information."
The phrase strikes me.
"Certain people."
I think of hallways, elevators, dark suits, and amber eyes. About how my body speeds up when he's around, even though I don't want it to.
"Are the results sent to you... or to the company?" I hear myself ask.
The doctor blinks.
"Both," she replies, after a very short pause. "I'll call you if there's anything that needs follow-up. And, like everything else in here, a copy goes to Management."
The word hangs in the air.
I nod.
I get off the examination table. The nurse opens the door for me with an automatic smile.
When I step out into the hallway, the smell of disinfectant hits me again. I take a few steps, and before the door closes completely, I hear the doctor's voice, lower now.
"Yes," she says into the phone. "We've taken Vega's sample."
No, I didn't tell her anything else. Just stress, for now. The results are going straight to you.
I don't hear the end of the sentence, but I don't need to.
For the first time, I feel clearly that my body is no longer just my business.
And that, whatever name they give it, someone up there is waiting for those results with too much attention for this to be just a "routine checkup."