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I

David’s last minute at the hospital feels like a lifetime. Twelve grueling hours of emergency deliveries, crying newborns, worried mothers, nurses weaving through the hallway like a current he’s fighting against. The fourth‑floor maternity ward is packed, bodies moving in every direction, voices overlapping, monitors chiming. He barely registers any of it. His eyes are fixed on the red door at the end of the corridor.

Freedom.

He walks fast, hoping no one stops him, hoping he can slip out before someone calls his name. The door is beautiful in its own battered way — red paint chipped at the bottom in a shape that always reminded him of a butterfly. Familiar. Comforting. A landmark of escape.

He reaches it. Pushes it open. Steps out. He turns and closes it with a subtle gesture of victory.

The night heat swallows him whole, thick, and humid, like stepping into a different world. He crosses the long parking lot, unlocks his car, slides into the driver’s seat and exhales.

“I finally made it,” he says, smiling to himself.

From where he sits, he can see the exit booth — the little square of yellow light where Old Man James always waits to send him off. Almost every night. A strange constant in a life that rarely feels steady.

David drives toward it.

“Hey, Doc… How are you? Another long day?” James asks, leaning out of the booth window with that familiar, friendly expression.

“Oh yeah,” David says. “Going fishing tomorrow.”

James nods. “It’s going to be a beautiful day for fishing, from what I hear.”

They exchange goodbyes. David pulls forward, leaving the booth behind, driving off into the night.

II

Two days later, the maternity ward feels busier than ever. David moves with purpose through the chaos, light‑blue surgical scrubs under his lab coat, a thin stack of folders tucked under one arm. A nurse in red scrubs hurries beside him, trying to match his pace.

“But Doc, the parents want an answer now — they’re desperate.”

He stops. Turns to her.

“I know. I’m heading to Radiology now. Tell them I’ll be back soon with an answer.”

She nods and disappears into the crowded hallway, swallowed by the noise and motion.

David continues down the familiar corridors — the same ones he’s walked a million times since his residency. The same scuffed floors, the same humming lights, the same red door at the end of the hallway, the same faint antiseptic smell that never leaves the air. He reaches the door and steps inside Radiology.

Two doctors stand over an X‑ray illuminated on the wall. They turn when they hear him.

“Hey, Dave,” one of them says. “We’ve got some bad news for you.”

David exhales, half a laugh, half a plea. “Oh no… tell me you’re joking.”

The man does not smile. He does not blink.

It was not a joke.

*

Two hours later, David steps out of the patient’s room. The bad news had devastated the family — the questions, the crying, the stunned silence that always follows when hope collapses. A baby who may never walk. The kind of burden doctors carry quietly, the part no one thinks about.

He walks to the front desk and tells Martha, the head nurse without stopping, “I’m going to lunch.” 

Martha says something, but he’s already moving down the hallway. His pace is slower now. It feels like he’s dragging the whole world with him. From each doorway a different noise spills out — a crying baby, a crying mother, a man arguing softly on his cell phone. The same hallway but it feels longer than usual, stretched by exhaustion.

The end of the corridor greets him. He pushes open the dilapidated red door and steps into the cafeteria.

The smell of coffee hits him immediately, warm and familiar, and something inside him lifts. The cafeteria is busy, but he doesn’t mind. He walks straight to the coffee machines, pours a full cup, adds sugar, exhales as he stirs. Then he takes a sip.

His whole body tightens. A shiver runs through him.

“Oh yes… this is some good coffee.”

A sharp beep and a vibration at his waist. His pager. He pulls it up — big bold letters:

CODE BLUE — ROOM 226

He sets the coffee down and runs out of the cafeteria.

III

Five hours later, David is walking down the hallway at the end of his shift, again, dragging his feet. Shoulders hunched forward. His whole body feels heavy, like the shift has settled into his bones. His red duffle bag on his shoulder. He keeps touching the back of his neck, trying to ease the tension there. The hallway looks even longer now, stretched somehow, the end of it farther away than it should be.

He keeps going.

His steps are slow. His breathing feels deep and thick. He finally reaches the door at the end of the hallway and pushes it open.

He startles.

His breath catches.

Brooms. Mops. A bucket. A low faucet with a floor drain beneath it. Paper towels. Cleaning chemicals.

A supply closet. Small. Dark. Dusty. Unused.

He steps back out into the hallway.

He turns around.

Only now does he hear it — the man on the cell phone, the woman crying, the baby crying, the front desk visible at the far end. The same sounds. The same people. The same hallway he has been walking all day.

He turns back.

The supply closet is still there.

He closes the door. Opens it again.

The same closet. Nothing is different.

He closes it once more and steps back, taking a slow breath.

This must be a dream, he thinks.

Suddenly, something stirs in the back of his mind. Not a complete memory. Fragments. The weight of the door. The resistance of the hinge. Warm air outside. The night swallowing him whole. The noisy cafeteria. The dark radiology room. Then, he looks at the door.

The red paint. The butterfly‑shaped chip near the bottom, staring back at him.