The nurse didn't even look up from the clipboard.
"Dr. Lin, Room 317 needs reevaluation. And ICU called—another consult."
Lin Yue paused mid-step, fingers tightening around the edge of the counter. Her legs felt hollow, like they might fold if she shifted her weight wrong. The clock on the wall read 3:12 a.m.
"I'm… about to end my shift," she said. Her voice was hoarse, barely louder than the hum of fluorescent lights. "I've already covered—"
The nurse sighed loudly and finally looked at her, eyes sharp with irritation rather than concern.
"Everyone's tired," she said. "You think you're special?"
Lin Yue swallowed. Her chest ached—not sharply yet, but with a dull pressure that refused to fade.
"I just finished thirty-six hours," Lin Yue said. "I'm not safe to—"
The nurse laughed, short and humorless. "Unsafe? Don't be dramatic. You doctors always say that when things get busy."
She flipped a page on the clipboard. "Besides, Dr. Han left early. Someone has to cover. You don't mind helping, right?"
The words landed like a trap.
Lin Yue hesitated.
Behind the nurse, orderlies rushed past with a gurney. Somewhere down the hall, a monitor beeped erratically.
"I…" Lin Yue started, then stopped.
She saw it then—the familiar tightening around the nurse's mouth, the impatience, the unspoken threat. Say no, and we'll remember. Say no, and next time your schedule will be worse. Say no, and you'll be labeled difficult.
A familiar lump of stone settled in her stomach as her shoulders slumped downwards as if something heavy was resting there.
"…I'll go," Lin Yue said quietly.
The nurse's face relaxed immediately. She smiled, satisfied. "Knew I could count on you."
As Lin Yue turned away, the nurse added lightly, "Oh—and the patients from the private ward. The ones transferred earlier? Administration wants you to review their charts personally."
Lin Yue's steps slowed.
Sleep, it seemed, was still a distant luxury—one she would not be claiming tonight.
—x—
The ICU lights were too bright. Too white. Her hands moved on instinct—checking vitals, issuing orders, stitching, stabilizing. She functioned because she always had.
But somewhere between the third consult and the fourth timestamp, the pressure in her chest bloomed into agony.
Her vision narrowed without warning, the bright ICU lights smearing into pale streaks. The steady beeping of a monitor warped, stretching and bending until it no longer sounded real.
Sit down, she told herself. Just for a second.
Her legs refused to listen.
She reached for the wall, fingers scraping uselessly through empty air. The world tilted sharply, gravity pulling her forward before she could catch herself. The cold floor rushed up, far too fast.
She hit it hard.
Pain flared briefly—then dulled, as though her body had already begun to shut itself down.
Voices broke through the haze. Someone was shouting her name. Someone else cursed under their breath. Footsteps pounded closer, but the sounds came muffled and slow, as if she were sinking beneath deep water.
Her chest tightened.
Once—her heart stuttered, a sharp, arrhythmic spasm that stole her breath.
Twice—harder this time, violent enough to rattle her ribs.
Air refused to fill her lungs. Her fingers twitched against the floor, numb and unresponsive.
In that final, fleeting moment of clarity, bitterness cut through the fog.
I should have said no.
The lights overhead vanished.
Darkness closed in, complete and unyielding.
—x—
Darkness did not come all at once.
At first, it was soft—thick and heavy, like a blanket pulled gently over her thoughts. The pain receded. The pressure in her chest loosened. Even the exhaustion, bone-deep and relentless, finally began to fade.
Lin Yue drifted.
There was no up or down, no sound or light. For the first time in years, no alarms screamed in her ears. No pager buzzed. No one called her name.
So this is rest, she thought distantly.
The idea brought an unexpected sense of relief.
She had done her best. She had stayed late. She had taken every shift, answered every call, stitched every wound placed in front of her. She had saved lives—countless, nameless lives. If she closed her eyes now, no one could ask her for anything more.
She allowed herself to sink into the quiet.
Then a memory surfaced.
A patient gripping her sleeve with trembling fingers.
A child's fever breaking just before dawn.
The weight of a scalpel in her hand—steady, precise, right.
Medicine had never been just a profession to her.
It was the axis her life had turned on—the quiet certainty that had guided every choice she made long before she had the words to explain it. While others spoke of ambition or success, she had been drawn instead to the fragile space between life and loss, to the idea that careful hands and clear judgment could pull someone back from the brink.
It was purpose. It was devotion. A calling she had answered without hesitation.
She had studied until exhaustion blurred the pages before her eyes, memorized anatomy until bodies became maps she could navigate in the dark. She had sacrificed sleep, relationships, and pieces of herself without complaint, telling herself it was necessary—telling herself it was worth it—because healing mattered more than comfort ever could.
Medicine had been her dream for as long as she could remember.
And for a moment, the warmth of that truth filled her chest, steady and familiar, like a heartbeat she trusted.
Then it twisted.
The same devotion that had sustained her curled inward, sharp with hindsight. She saw how easily her sense of duty had been exploited, how often her refusal to step away had been praised as virtue rather than recognized as harm. How many times she had ignored her own limits because someone else needed her more.
Why didn't I say no?
The darkness seemed to stir.
She saw herself again—bowing her head, forcing a smile, taking on more because it was easier than being difficult. Easier than standing alone. Easier than risking retaliation.
"I knew better," she whispered into the void, though no sound emerged. "I knew—and I still stayed silent."
The anger sharpened, no longer diffuse, no longer distant.
It did not lash outward—
not at the nurses who mocked her,
not at the administrators who exploited her,
not even at the men who had used her silence as a shield for their crimes.
It turned inward.
At herself.
She saw it clearly now—every moment she had hesitated, every time she had lowered her gaze and accepted what she knew was wrong. She had mistaken endurance for virtue, obedience for kindness. She had told herself that suffering quietly made her strong.
It hadn't.
Her hands curled instinctively, fingers tightening into fists, though she could no longer feel them. The motion existed only in memory, in will.
If I had been selfish, she thought, the bitterness sharp and cutting.
Just once.
The darkness responded.
It rippled, as if disturbed by her resolve. The stillness fractured, replaced by subtle movement—an unseen shift in the void around her.
Something tugged at her.
At first, it was barely there—a gentle downward pull, like the slow forming of a current beneath the surface of calm water. It did not frighten her. It only moved her.
Her thoughts quickened.
I wasn't finished.
The realization struck with sudden, blinding clarity.
She wasn't done healing broken bodies.
Wasn't done learning the intricacies of life balanced on the edge of death.
Wasn't done being more than a tool shaped by others' expectations.
Her passion burned bright, a steady flame that refused to be smothered—even here.
"I want to live," she thought, the words blazing fiercely against the encroaching dark. "If I live again… I won't let them use me. I won't let myself disappear."
The pull strengthened in response.
The void stretched, lengthening unnaturally, as though the space itself were collapsing inward. What had once been a gentle drift turned into a steady descent, inexorable and consuming.
Faster.
The darkness pressed close, rushing past her in invisible layers, folding in on itself. There was no ground, no sky—only motion and intent. The sensation of falling intensified, accelerating until thought itself struggled to keep pace.
If I were to live again, she vowed fiercely, her resolve hardening into something unbreakable,
I'll choose myself.
The pull became violent.
She plunged deeper, faster, the darkness tearing at her thoughts, stripping away hesitation, fear, and doubt—as though dragging her toward something waiting below.
Something inevitable.
And then—
She hit the ground.
At least, that was what it felt like.
A violent jolt tore through her, her body seizing as she sucked in a ragged, burning gasp. Muscles spasmed uncontrollably, breath returning too fast, too sharp—painfully alive. Sensations that had been distant only moments ago crashed back all at once, overwhelming in their intensity.
Warm light pressed against her closed eyelids.
She groaned softly and forced them open, her vision swimming, edges blurred as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. The world refused to settle, shapes smearing together as she struggled to focus.
But something was wrong.
There was no sharp sting of disinfectant in the air.
No sterile chill.
No rhythmic beeping of heart monitors anchoring her to reality.
Instead, she smelled earth—damp and raw—and something faintly herbal.
Her breath hitched.
This wasn't a hospital… so where the hell was she?