Jin pushed the library doors open and stepped into the corridor beyond, the old hinges groaning into a silence that felt thicker than it should have this late into the night. Most of the base had long since gone dark, windows shuttered, hallways lit only by the dim, ambient glow of the emergency strips lining the baseboards.
He was tired in that hollow, bone deep way that came from sitting rigid through something his body hadn't actually experienced, and he let his feet carry him without much thought, boots scuffing quiet against the worn floor. He passed the common room, empty now, chairs still pushed back from dinner, and the training gym further down the hall, dark except for a single security light glowing faint over the equipment racks. Somewhere upstairs a pipe knocked once, settling the way old buildings always did once the day's noise finally died down.
