NICK
(Few hours earlier)
The fluorescent light fixtures in the second-floor recovery wing hummed with a low, vibrating drone that felt directly connected to the pulse behind my ears.
This was my fourth consecutive twelve-hour shift, a stretch of time I had navigated on roughly three hours of sleep and the specific, stubborn refusal to acknowledge that my lungs were currently full of hot sand.
I had decided weeks ago that stopping was simply not an option on the table.
My body, however, had begun to make its own decisions without asking for my permission first.
The headache had officially graduated past the stage where four hundred milligrams of ibuprofen could touch it; it had settled into a heavy, throbbing ache directly behind my retinas, pulsing with a regular, angry rhythm that felt like a secondary heart trying to kick its way out of my skull.
I had slipped into the staff restroom at dawn to press a glass thermometer under my tongue.
