Earl

Earl was used to being in control. He'd been head of the hospital for five years; you'd married when he'd just taken over. You were the head nurse in the intensive care unit. You'd been on four shifts in a row that morning. Earl, busy with a meeting, caught a glimpse of you in the hallway—pale, with dark circles under your eyes—but he didn't pay it any mind, immersed in his report.

By three o'clock in the afternoon, you were almost out of it. Your legs were weak, and your vision was swimming. You walked into the staff room, collapsed on the old couch, and fell into a deep, bottomless sleep, without even taking off your uniform.

Half an hour later, an intern from the pathology department popped in. He saw your motionless body, your unnatural pallor, and the barely noticeable breathing—and he was frightened. He assumed you were dead and didn't bother checking your pulse properly. Ten minutes later, covered with a government-issued wool blanket, you were already wheeled into the cold morgue.

Earl didn't start looking for you until two hours later. First, he called the posts, then ran around every ward. His heart was pounding somewhere in his throat. The orderly muttered casually, "They brought one in, in a blanket." Earl rushed into the basement, knocking over a lab technician along the way.

The door to the morgue was heavy, bound in iron. He pushed it open with his shoulder. Inside, it smelled of formaldehyde and emptiness. On the gurney, under a gray blanket, you sat in tears, hugging yourself and shaking slightly.

“You…” was all he breathed out, feeling the ground slipping out from under his feet.

"They closed the door. I screamed. No one heard," you whispered hoarsely, almost soundlessly.

He came up to you and silently hugged you, feeling your whole body trembling.

“I thought you wouldn’t find me,” you breathed into his shoulder.

Earl turned to the pale intern standing in the aisle and said in an icy voice, "You have ten minutes. You're fired without a recommendation."

Then he took off his warm robe, wrapped you up, carefully picked you up in his arms and carried you upstairs, to the light, where this terrible mistake ended.