A few hours later, the floor didn't sound the same.
It wasn't screaming anymore. Not running feet or slammed doors or alarms cutting through the air. That kind of panic had burned itself out early—spent fast, like adrenaline dumped all at once.
What replaced it was quieter.
Worse.
Small sounds. Human ones. Chairs scraping against tile. Someone coughing too often. Babies crying until someone remembered to rock them, then crying again when the adult holding them forgot how to breathe. Low arguments that never reached full volume, cut off the moment a uniform passed through the hall.
The entire wing felt like it was trying to behave.
Trying.
Panic hadn't vanished. It had just learned how to hide. It crouched behind clipped sentences and forced smiles. It lived in the way people flinched when someone stood too quickly. In the way parents held their children like gravity might suddenly stop working.
Labor & Delivery had turned heavy.
The air was thick with bodies packed too close together, with milk and sweat and antiseptic layered over fear. Somewhere below them, the dead still moaned—slow, wet sounds that rolled up the stairwell like the building itself was breathing wrong.
Every time the noise rose, shoulders tightened. Conversations died mid-sentence. People listened without meaning to.
A man stood by the windows with his phone raised over his head, arm trembling. He tilted it, pressed it to the glass, lifted it again—like height might coax a signal into existence.
"Come on," he whispered. "Please. Just one bar."
Nothing.
He stared at the screen, jaw tight, then slapped the phone against his palm. Once. Hard enough to make the woman beside him flinch.
She sat on the floor, phone pressed to her ear even though the call had already gone to voicemail.
"Mama," she said softly. "It's me."
Her voice cracked on the word.
"I'm at the hospital. I think I'm okay." She swallowed. "Please answer."
She hung up and immediately called again. Like repetition could become a rope.
"If you hear this," she whispered into the dead line, "I love you."
The phone stayed dark.
Near the nurses' station, a postpartum mother rocked slowly with her newborn pressed to her chest. The baby screamed until it ran out of breath, then screamed again. The mother's eyes were unfocused. Her lips moved silently—counting, praying, reciting something learned long before today.
Across the hall, another mother stood frozen in front of the nursery doors, checking the locks every half minute. There was dried blood on her sleeve—someone else's blood—and she hadn't stopped staring at it since.
Everywhere you looked, people were doing what frightened animals did: clustering, pacing, watching exits, watching each other.
The theories came next.
Quiet at first.
"It's the vaccine," a man whispered urgently. "My cousin said—"
"It's not the vaccine," someone snapped.
"It's the government," another voice insisted, louder. "They shut everything down. That's why the phones don't work."
"The phones don't work because the towers are probably burning," Angela Freeman said sharply as she shoved a cart into place to block a side corridor. Her hands shook. She didn't hide it.
A man with too much blood on his shoes kept insisting it was riots, drugs, hysteria. His voice rose every time someone ignored him.
Officer Daniels shut that down with a look.
Officer Micah Daniels wasn't large, but he carried stillness the way some people carried weapons. Mid-thirties. Tired eyes. Jaw dark with stubble. His uniform looked too clean for what had happened, which meant he'd been careful. Smart.
Alive.
His gun rested heavy on his hip—not drawn, not displayed. Just present. A reminder of consequences.
He moved like someone who understood that chaos fed on attention. He didn't rush unless he had to. He didn't shout unless the room demanded it. He watched hands. He watched mouths. He watched doors like doors were teeth.
And when he looked at Dr. Sharon Leesburg, something shifted—barely visible. Not softness. Not hope.
Recognition.
You're holding this together, and I don't know how.
Most people didn't know his first name. They just called him Officer. Names made things personal. Personal made survival harder.
Officer Daniels did rounds every fifteen minutes. Doors. Stairwells. Volunteers who wanted to play guard. He measured who wanted to help and who wanted control.
He checked on the staff too—quietly—because the staff were the only reason the babies weren't dying while adults unraveled.
Angela Freeman had been charting for hours. Her handwriting had gone jagged. The pen slipped in her sweaty glove. She stared at the page like stopping would make something worse happen.
Patrice Holloway stood watch at the nursery doors, posture unbreakable. Earlier she'd walked into chaos and come back with a head count like she'd dragged order by the throat.
But when no one needed her, her eyes drifted to her phone.
No signal.
No texts.
Her mouth tightened every time.
Renee Collins had blood under her nails that wouldn't wash out. She'd scrubbed until her knuckles cracked. When she finally got one second alone, she slid down the wall near the supply closet and put her head in her hands.
Not crying.
Just breathing like someone who had been running toward fire.
Angela crouched beside her. "You okay?"
Renee let out a thin, broken laugh. "No."
Angela nodded. "Me neither."
Patrice leaned in, voice low. "Anyone hear anything? Anything at all?"
Angela shook her head. "No alerts. No news. Nothing."
Renee whispered, "My sister was supposed to pick up my son from daycare."
Silence fell hard.
"How old?" Patrice asked.
"Three," Renee said. The number cracked her open. "Malik. He hides under tables when he's scared."
Angela covered her mouth. "My mom's on oxygen," she whispered. "She lives alone."
None of them said what they were all thinking.
Officer Daniels stood a few feet away, pretending not to hear. He gave them those seconds because sometimes that was the only mercy left.
Then the moaning rose again from below.
Something dragged across concrete.
"They're right under us," someone whispered.
A man near the stairwell started hyperventilating, laughing, crying. His wife begged him to stop.
Officer Daniels knelt in front of him. "Breathe," he said quietly. "You're here. You're alive."
The man slowed—not because he felt safe, but because Daniels made him feel contained.
Daniels stood and scanned the hallway again.
At the far end, Dr. Sharon Leesburg moved with purpose—blood on her gloves, exhaustion in her posture, command in every step. She didn't look fragile. She looked dangerous in the way people became when they refused to stop.
Daniels watched her for a second longer than he should have.
Then he turned and started down the corridor toward her, boots quiet against tile, carrying with him the weight of a floor barely holding together—and the knowledge that whatever came next, it would be decided where she stood.
And this time, he wasn't going to let her stand alone.