Yates International Hospital glowed cold under the fluorescent lights—too calm, too white for the storm they had just run from. Athena and Adriel entered through the sliding doors, adrenaline still burning through their veins.
Athena could barely walk straight. Her limbs trembled, her mind replaying her father falling—again and again like a broken film reel.
A nurse approached them at the reception desk.
"My—my sister is a patient," Adriel lied quickly, voice tight.
The nurse nodded, pointed down a hallway, and gave directions. They moved.
Third floor. Ward 101.
Athena remained quiet until the elevator doors opened. The hallway stretched long ahead of them, voices faint, machines beeping behind closed doors.
But then Athena gasped. She stopped walking.
Her eyes were locked on a slightly open door to her left.
"Athena—what is it?" Adriel whispered.
She didn't answer.
She stepped closer.
Inside the room, a woman lay restrained, thrashing weakly. A man—dressed in a white coat—held a syringe and pushed it into her arm with alarming force. Within seconds, her body went limp, her arms collapsing beside her.
Athena's heart caved inward.
"He—he just—" Her voice cracked. "Is she a patient or a doctor?"
Adriel grabbed her wrist, harder than before. "Athena," he hissed, eyes wide, "we have to leave."
"But—"
"They're here too," he whispered. "Those same people. We can't stay."
Something inside Athena broke further.
Everything was supposed to be safe here. Hospitals were clean, protected, monitored. Not places where people collapsed under forced injections.
Her body wanted to freeze.
Her mind wanted to scream.
But Adriel pulled her back, steps quickening. "We're leaving now."
Athena tried to look back one more time, but he forced her forward. They ran down the corridor, breath rushing in painful bursts, the hospital lights flickering above like warnings.
At the stairwell, they skipped the elevator and rushed downward.
From third floor to second.
Second to first.
Athena barely processed the movement, just the pounding of footsteps behind them—the echo of boots, someone shouting down a hallway.
Adriel pushed open the exit door, and the outside air hit them like a slap.
They didn't look back.
Not at the hospital.
Not at the door.
Not at the room where innocence died.
They just ran into the night—toward someplace unknown—chased by the terror that safety was nowhere anymore.