Tuesday nights at the clinic are always the worst.
There’s something about the middle of the week that drags in the restless and the reckless, the ones who have nowhere else to go, the ones who hover between life and death like moths circling a dying flame. The air inside the ER is thick with the scent of antiseptic and something metallic; blood, maybe, or the lingering aftermath of whatever chaos brought them here.
It’s nearing eleven, and I’m running on nothing but black coffee and the distant hope of a few hours of sleep before my next shift. My scrubs feel stiff with dried sweat, and my feet ache with the kind of exhaustion that no amount of rest can fix.
And then the doors burst open.
A paramedic barrels through, pushing a stretcher with a man whose shirt is slick with blood. His breathing is ragged, shallow. A deep gash runs along his abdomen, the wound poorly wrapped in makeshift bandages that are already soaked through. His face is half-hidden behind a mess of dark hair, but I can see enough, his skin is pale, clammy, and there’s something about the way his fingers twitch, the way his mouth moves without sound, that sends a prickle of unease down my spine.
“This one’s bad,” the paramedic warns, his voice strained. “Found him in an alley off of 9th. Knife wound, lost a lot of blood. We stabilized him, but he keeps—” He exhales sharply,shaking his head. “He keeps saying things. Delirious.”
Not unusual. Blood loss does that to people.
I nod, already moving, already in motion. “Get him into Bay Two. I need a trauma kit and a transfusion started, now.”
The next few minutes are a blur of action, gloved hands pressing gauze to his wound, cutting away the fabric of his ruined shirt, an IV line slipping into his arm as I work to stabilize him. The monitors beep steadily, his vitals weak but holding.
But something’s off.
Even in his state, drifting in and out of consciousness, his lips move, forming words too quiet to catch at first. Then, a shuddering breath.
And I hear it.
A whisper, barely audible, like a dying prayer.
“Pakhan.”
My hands still.
The room around me fades, the noise, the movement, the fluorescent hum of the overhead lights. All of it fades beneath the weight of his words.
It’s Russian.
The curtain rustles, and then Ada’s here, slipping into the room with the same urgency I feel thrumming in my veins. Her presence is steady, efficient, hands already moving, snapping on gloves, checking the monitors. Fulfilling her duties like second nature.
“He’s in bad shape,” she murmurs, adjusting the IV. “BP’s low, pulse weak. He won’t last long if we don’t get him stable.”
I nod, swallowing the unease curling at the edges of my mind. The room is bright, too bright, the fluorescent glare making the blood smeared across his skin look almost unreal.
But he’s still whispering.
Low. Ragged. Just under his breath.
Ada freezes. Her hand, mid-motion as she reaches for thetrauma kit, goes still.
Because she hears it too.
“Winter is coming early this year.”
The words scrape from his throat like rusted metal, dry and cracked, barely more than a breath. A violent shiver wracks his body. His fingers twitch against the gurney, curling like he’s grasping at something unseen.
A chill rips through me.
Ada’s eyes flick to mine, wide. Uncertain. I don’t think I’ve ever seen uncertainty in her before, not like this.
For a second, neither of us speak.
The words hang between us, heavy, soaked in something I don’t want to name. Something bigger than this room, bigger than the man bleeding out beneath my hands.
