Section 1.5

So she left, without saying goodbye, without formally quitting, and without even bothering to pack her belongings. She attended to her last patient, a survivor who had clawed his way back from the brink after 16 agonizing days, and might finally go home tomorrow. But she wouldn’t be the one writing the discharge order. In that moment, she felt hollow, as if a part of her had already slipped away. The weight of despair settled heavy on her chest, suffocating. There was nothing left of her—only a shadow of the person she once was, trapped in a cycle of grief and exhaustion. She had reached the end of her tether, consumed by a darkness that seemed to stretch infinitely ahead.