Despite not dying, my body felt like it’d already been buried under layers of soot and rock. On my back, on one of the thin cots in an infirmary of sorts, I could scarcely make out the rows of other beds lining both walls. Context clues were enough to know they filled the room, but my sight was still as it was before: jumbled and blurry. The brighter lights didn’t help, they made the pressure in my head unbearable, so I shut my eyes and relaxed every muscle. The cot was far from cozy, but so was being lucid. I felt like I was revolving in circles as I lay still.

         Groans and cries came and went on all sides. It was similar to being in some kind of living dead situation, with the deceased rising from their graves around me. On second thought, the moans were more fitting the temperament of movie ghosts who linger, haunting the halls where they died. Distracting myself from the unanimous hurt by putting some fantastical labels to the noise was enough to ease me back into the weightless sensation before sleep. When the sobs of a bed close picked up, I didn’t have to make the effort, my thoughts already knew it was something spectral. Ghosts were better roommates than crying prisoners, those didn’t exist

         “This is too much…” A woman's voice whined just barely over a whisper. “Why don’t they consider the clean-up work this leaves us with?”

“They’re the experts.” A second feminine voice responded, annoyed. It could have been at the workflow, or it could have been with the person with whom she was speaking.

“Experts?” The first nurse shot. Her volume went up in frustration, “I know more about the practice than those money-laundering hacks- “

There was a break, followed by a stumble back in plastic flat shoes.

“I say this with your best interest in mind,” The second voice was bleak, “You’ll keep those opinions to yourself.”