There is a certain smell to clean death—the kind caused by a swift bullet or a sharp blade; a faint scent of gunpowder or fresh blood scattering in the air for a few seconds.
And there is the smell of rotten death, where bodies are left to decompose under the sun.
But on the second basement floor (B2) of Saint Hilarius Hospital, the smell belonged to neither.
It was the smell of "life slowly being drained."
The air was heavy, sticky, and nauseatingly warm, as if you were breathing inside the lung of a sick living creature.
The dominant scent was that of copper and rusted iron, thick and concentrated to the point that anyone inhaling it felt as though they were swallowing old coins soaked in saltwater and pus.
In the middle of this nightmarish atmosphere, a portion of the shattered steel elevator cabin had fallen after splitting apart in the shaft, coming to rest atop a thick metal mesh suspended in the void.
