The hospital felt different at night.

Xiuying had never noticed it during the day—how quiet the corridors could become when visiting hours ended, when the last carts were wheeled away and the nurses settled into the slower rhythm of overnight shifts. Now every sound echoed. The squeak of her shoe on the floor made her freeze.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

Abdul leaned closer to her in the dim corridor light. “It’s fine. Just… quieter than I thought.”

They stood outside the morgue elevator. During work experience she had watched orderlies wheel bodies through these doors, disappearing down a corridor that regular staff weren’t allowed to enter. The elevator panel had no button for it. Just a smooth metal plate where the button should have been. Xiuying glanced around the empty hallway.

“Okay,” she whispered, “this is the part where you do the acrobat thing.”

Abdul gave her a nervous smile.

“I hate that you call it that.”

“You climbed three floors of the gym wall without a harness.”

“That was different.”

“Please.”

He sighed, stepping closer to the panel.

“Fine.”

He crouched, sliding a thin piece of metal into the seam beneath the plate. His mother worked maintenance shifts sometimes; he’d watched her override equipment more than once. The trick, apparently, was finding where the wiring sat behind the casing. Xiuying kept watch down the corridor. The hospital was never truly empty.A distant cart rattled somewhere far away. Footsteps echoed faintly on another floor. The low hum of machinery vibrated through the walls.

“Any luck?” she whispered.

“Maybe.”

The metal plate clicked softly.

Both of them froze.

Then the hidden button lit up

“You were just guessing?”

Abdul grinned nervously. “Mostly.”

The elevator doors slid open.

Inside, the control panel looked normal except for one additional button at the very bottom.

B3.

Xiuying stepped inside first before she could change her mind.

The doors closed with a quiet hiss.

B1.

B2.

Xiuying’s stomach tightened.

“Last chance to turn back,” Abdul murmured.

“You’re the one who came with me.”

“Yeah.”

He looked down at his hands.

“My mom keeps saying things are… changing. At the hospital.”

Xiuying glanced at him. “Changing how?”

“She says the new staff don’t understand the balance.”

The elevator shuddered slightly as it stopped.

Cold air rolled into the elevator. The corridor outside was darker than the hospital above. Only a few overhead lights were on, casting long shadows along the walls. Xiuying stepped out slowly. The floor here wasn’t polished tile like the rest of the building. It was stone.

“What the hell,” Abdul whispered.

The corridor stretched ahead of them, ending at a large metal door.

A symbol had been carved into it. Xiuying stepped closer. The shape looked almost like a tree. But the roots twisted outward in unnatural patterns, spreading across the metal like veins.

“Do you recognize that?” she asked.

Abdul shook his head.

“No.”

A faint sound came from beyond the door. Low voices speaking in a language Xiuying didn’t understand.

“We should go,” Abdul whispered.

But Xiuying had already reached the door.

The room beyond was enormous. Stone pillars supported the ceiling, their surfaces covered in carved symbols that matched the one on the door. Candles burned along the walls, their flames flickering in the dim air. In the center of the room stood a raised platform. A hospital bed sat on top of it. Xiuying’s breath caught in her throat. The patient lying on the bed was unconscious. IV lines ran from their arm into glass containers filled with a strange dark liquid. Doctors stood around the platform, still wearing their white coats, but over them they wore long ceremonial robes marked with the same tree symbol. One of them stepped forward. Xiuying recognized her instantly.

Abdul’s mother.

Her voice joined the chant. The patient’s body trembled slightly. The liquid in the glass containers began to glow. The symbols carved into the pillars flickered with the same light. Xiuying felt the air pressure change. Like the room itself was breathing.

“What are they doing?” Abdul whispered.

Before Xiuying could answer, the patient suddenly gasped. Their body arched violently. The glow surged through the glass tubes, flowing into the symbols carved into the floor. And then—

The patient went still.

A doctor checked their pulse.

“Confirmed,” he said calmly.

“Transfer complete.”

Abdul’s mother exhaled slowly.

“The ICU patients should stabilize within the hour.”

Xiuying’s blood ran cold.

Transfer.

Not healing.

Transfer.

Life for life.

She stepped backward in shock. Her shoe scraped against the stone. The sound echoed across the chamber. Every head turned. Silence fell. One of the doctors pointed toward the doorway.

“Someone’s there.”

Abdul grabbed Xiuying’s hand.

“Run.”

They turned and sprinted down the corridor.

Xiuying’s lungs burned as they reached the elevator.

“Come on—come on—”

The button flashed.

The doors slid open, and they rushed inside.

Just as the doors began closing, a hand slammed against the gap. The elevator stopped. A security guard forced the doors apart. Behind him stood Abdul’s mother. Her expression wasn’t angry. It was disappointedHer eyes settled on her son.

“Abdul,” she said quietly.

He froze.

“Mom…”

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

Two guards grabbed him before he could move.

Xiuying screamed, reaching for him.

“Wait—!”

Chandramoli didn’t expect Sasha to actually come.

When ze had said, “I’ll stop by later,” outside the hospital that afternoon, she’d assumed it was the sort of thing people said when they weren’t sure how else to end a conversation. DBut at half past ten that night, someone knocked on her apartment door.

Demi lifted her head from the couch with a look of deep suspicion.

“Don’t start,” Chandramoli muttered.

The knock came again.

She crossed the small living room and opened the door. Sasha stood in the hallway, hands shoved into the pockets of a dark jacket. Ze looked almost exactly the same as the last time Chandramoli had seen zem—short hair, sharp posture, that tired focus in zer eyes that never quite went away.

Except maybe now it was worse.

“Hi,” Sasha said.

“Hi.”

Neither of them moved. For a moment Chandramoli wondered if this had been a mistake.

Then she stepped aside.

“You’d better come in before my neighbors decide I’m hiding a criminal.”

Sasha snorted softly and stepped into the apartment. The place wasn’t large—just a kitchen, a couch, a table that doubled as both dining space and paperwork storage—but it was warm. Demi immediately appeared and began inspecting Sasha’s boots with aggressive curiosity.

“Still have the cat,” Sasha said.

“Of course I still have the cat.”

“It hated me last time.”

“It hates everyone.”

Demi sniffed Sasha’s hand and then abruptly flopped over for belly scratches.

Chandramoli folded her arms.

“Traitor.”

Sasha crouched, scratching behind the her ears.

“Guess I grew on her.”

“Don’t get smug.”

They both laughed, and for a moment the tension eased. But it didn’t disappear. It hung in the room like a second shadow. Sasha stood again, glancing around the apartment.

“So,” ze said. “You live close to the hospital.”

“Walking distance.”

“Convenient.”

Chandramoli leaned against the kitchen counter.

“You didn’t come here to talk about my commute.”

“No.”

“Look, if this is about earlier—”

“It is.”

“Then just say it.”

Sasha ran a hand through zer hair.

“You’re in danger.”

Chandramoli blinked.

“That’s a dramatic way to start a conversation.”

“I’m serious.”

“I noticed.”

She pushed away from the counter.

“Why would I be in danger?”

Sasha hesitated.

“Because of the patient who died,” ze said finally.

Chandramoli stiffened.

“That’s already being investigated.”

“By the hospital.”

“Yes.”

“That’s not the only investigation happening.”

Chandramoli stared at zem.

“What does that mean?”

Sasha exhaled slowly.

“The government believes your hospital is involved in illegal magical activity.”

For a moment Chandramoli thought she’d misheard.

Then she laughed.

“You came all the way here to tell me that?”

“I came here because you’re being framed.”

The laughter stopped.

“What?”

“The poison,” Sasha said. “You didn’t do it.”

“No kidding.”

“But someone wanted it to look like you did.”

Chandramoli’s jaw tightened.

“That’s comforting.”

“Chandra.”

“Don’t call me that.” The words came out sharper than she intended.

Sasha flinched slightly.

“Sorry,” she muttered.

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not.”

She turned away, staring out the window at the dark street below.

“You disappear for three years,” she said quietly. “Then you show up at my doorstep to tell me the hospital I’ve dedicated my life to is secretly doing black magic.”

“That’s not exactly what I said.”

“It’s pretty close.”

Sasha stepped closer.

“Listen to me.”

Chandramoli didn’t turn around.

“The government has been tracking magical anomalies in the city,” Sasha continued. “Energy spikes. Unusual recovery rates. Things that shouldn’t be possible with normal medicine.”

“Miracles happen.”

“Not on a schedule.”

That made Chandramoli pause.

She glanced over her shoulder.

“What?”

“People who are nearly discharged die suddenly,” Sasha said. “Then somewhere else in the hospital, a patient who should have died recovers.”

The room felt colder.

“That’s not—”

“It’s a pattern.”

“You’re guessing.”

“I’m investigating.”

Chandramoli shook her head.

“You’re wrong.”

“I hope I am.”

Something in Sasha’s voice made her turn fully.

Ze looked exhausted.

Not dramatic. Not manipulative. Just… tired.

“You really believe this,” she said slowly.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve seen this before.”

That answer hung in the air.

Chandramoli’s heartbeat quickened.

“What do you mean, you’ve seen it before?”

Sasha hesitated again.

Then ze said quietly,

“The plague that wiped out the rainforest zone thirty years ago?”

“Yes.”

“It wasn’t natural.”

The words landed like a stone in water. Ripples of unease spread through Chandramoli’s chest.

“That’s a conspiracy theory,” she said.

“No.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying black magic leaves traces,” Sasha said. “And those traces are appearing around your hospital.”

Chandramoli rubbed her arms, suddenly aware of the chill in the room.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Then explain the poison.”

She couldn’t.

Finally Chandramoli sighed and sank onto the couch.

“My coworkers think I killed that patient,” she muttered.

Sasha sat beside her.

“You didn’t.”

“I know that.”

“But they don’t.”

Chandramoli stared at her hands.

“They’re already talking about firing me.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

She looked up.

“To help?”

“To warn you.”

“About what?”

Sasha met her eyes.

“If someone framed you,” ze said quietly, “it’s probably because you saw something you weren’t supposed to.”

Chandramoli’s stomach twisted.

The hospital corridors flashed through her mind.

The morgue carts.

The restricted areas.

Things she’d ignored because she trusted the place.

“That’s insane,” she whispered.

“Maybe.”

Neither of them moved.

Three years of unfinished arguments and unresolved feelings sitting between them on the couch.

“You always did this,” Chandramoli said suddenly.

“Did what?”

“Show up with terrible news and expect me to believe you.”

Sasha gave a tired half-smile.

“You used to believe me.”

“I used to be dating you.”

“That helped.”

Despite herself, Chandramoli laughed.

The sound came out shaky. Sasha looked at her for a long moment. Then ze said softly,

“I missed you.”

The honesty in zer voice knocked the breath out of her.

“That’s not fair,” she said.

“Probably not.”

“You don’t get to say things like that after disappearing.”

“I didn’t disappear.”

“You absolutely did.”

“I was deployed.”

“And I was supposed to just… wait?”

Sasha didn’t answer. The silence stretched again. Then Chandramoli shook her head.

“This is stupid.”

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

She stood abruptly.

Sasha stood too.

They were suddenly very close.

Close enough that Chandramoli could see the faint scar along Sasha’s jaw that hadn’t been there years ago.

“You’re still terrible at timing,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“And I’m still mad at you.”

“I know.”

“And the hospital is not secretly killing patients for magic.”

Sasha didn’t argue. Instead ze said quietly,

“I hope you’re right.”

Something about the way ze said it made Chandramoli’s chest tighten. She moved closer without really thinking about it. Sasha didn’t move away. For a moment they just sat there. Then Chandramoli kissed zem. The decision surprised even her. But Sasha kissed her back immediately, hands finding her waist like muscle memory had never faded.

The tension of the past week—the accusations, the fear, the uncertainty—collapsed all at once.

For a little while, neither of them thought about the hospital.

Or the poison.

Or the things waiting beneath the building.

But later, long after the lights were off and the apartment was quiet again, Chandramoli lay awake staring at the ceiling.

Sasha’s arm rested loosely across her waist.

Outside, somewhere in the distance, a hospital siren wailed through the night.

And for the first time since the patient died, Chandramoli wondered if Sasha might be right.

If something inside that hospital was terribly wrong.

The city looked different after midnight. Sasha walked without a destination, hands buried deep in zer jacket pockets as the night air rolled in from the harbor. The neon lights of the commercial district flickered against wet pavement, turning the streets into long smears of color. Ze hadn’t meant to leave Chandramoli’s apartment like that. One minute they had been talking—actually talking for the first time in years—and the next the conversation had twisted into something sharp and brittle.

Old wounds had a way of doing that.

Sasha kicked a loose stone across the sidewalk. The investigation sat heavy in zer mind. Every piece of evidence pointed back to the hospital. Energy spikes. Unexplained recoveries. Now poison. And Chandramoli caught in the middle of it.

Ze rubbed a hand over zer face.

Focus.

That was the rule.

Stay focused. Stay sharp.

Except the city had a way of wearing that focus down.

Sasha turned down a narrow alley lit by a single buzzing streetlamp. At the end of it sat a door painted black.

No windows. Just a small brass bell hanging beside the frame.

Ze stopped a few steps away. For a long moment Sasha just stood there. The air smelled like rain and engine oil.

“You’re better than this,” ze muttered to zemself.

But the thought didn’t stick. It never did when the pressure started building like this. The bell rang softly as Sasha pushed the door open. Inside, the noise hit immediately. Music pounded through the walls. Conversations overlapped into a constant murmur. The room was dim except for strips of red lighting along the bar. The place was packed. Doctors still in their scrubs, night-shift workers, students. People who wanted to forget things.

No one asked questions here.

That was the point.

Sasha slid onto an empty stool at the bar.

The bartender glanced over.

“You again.”

Sasha shrugged.

“Miss me?”

“Depends.”

The bartender wiped a glass with a cloth that looked older than the building.

“Thought you quit.”

“I did.”

“Mm.”

That noncommittal sound carried more judgment than any lecture.

Sasha tapped the counter once.

“Just one.”

The bartender studied zem for a moment. Then he reached under the counter. The small vial he set down was barely larger than a thumb. Dark liquid inside. It shimmered faintly under the bar lights. Illegal, obviously. Magically distilled stimulants had been banned years ago after half the city’s emergency rooms filled with people whose nervous systems had burned out. But bans didn’t stop demand. And demand always found supply.

“You know the price,” the bartender said.

Sasha slid a few folded notes across the counter.

He took them without another word. Sasha picked up the vial. The glass felt cold between zer fingers.

“Bad night?” the bartender asked.

Sasha stared at the liquid.

“Bad investigation.”

“Same thing sometimes.”

Ze laughed softly.

“Yeah.”

Across the bar, someone was arguing loudly about government corruption.

“…they’ve been cutting funding for years!”

“Yeah, because they’re incompetent!”

“Or because they want the private hospital to look better!”

Sasha glanced toward them.

The hospital’s reputation filled the entire city like a religion. Miracle cures. Free care. Doctors who could do what no one else could. Meanwhile the government looked like it couldn’t fix a broken sink.

If the truth came out…

The city would tear itself apart.

Sasha rolled the vial between zer fingers.

The liquid glowed faintly. Just a small dose. Enough to quiet the storm in zer head. Enough to push the memories back.

You’re better than this.

The thought sounded weaker now.

Ze opened the vial.

The smell was sharp and metallic.

“Careful,” the bartender muttered. “New batch.”

Sasha tilted the vial back.

The liquid burned on the way down.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then the world sharpened. Sounds became clearer. Lights brighter. The weight in Sasha’s chest loosened slightly. Ze exhaled slowly. The bar noise faded into something manageable. Thoughts began lining up again instead of colliding in zer head.

“Better?” the bartender asked.

Sasha nodded once.

“Yeah.”

But the relief came with something else. The drug made patterns easier to see. Connections. Details. Across the bar, two men in hospital ID badges were speaking in low voices. Sasha wasn’t trying to listen. But zer sharpened senses picked up pieces anyway.

“…deliveries tomorrow night.”

“…same route as before?”

“Yeah. Straight out to the forest.”

Forest.

Sasha’s head tilted slightly.

“…you’d think the government would notice trucks going out there every week.”

“They don’t want to notice.”

“Still feels risky.”

“It’s necessary.”

Necessary.

The word made Sasha’s stomach twist.

Ze stared down at the empty vial in zer hand.

The hospital. The rainforest quarantine zone. Deliveries in the middle of the night. The drug buzzing through zer system pushed the thoughts together like puzzle pieces snapping into place. Something was moving between the hospital and the forest. Regularly. Quietly.

And whatever it was…

People inside the hospital thought it was necessary.

Sasha slid off the barstool.

“Leaving already?” the bartender asked.

“Yeah.”

“You look worse than when you came in.”

“Thanks.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

Sasha dropped the empty vial on the counter.

“I know.”

Sasha stepped back out into the night air, shoving zer hands into zer pockets and started walking again. Somewhere across the city, the hospital glowed against the dark skyline like a beacon.

Perfect.

Untouchable.

Beloved.

Sasha stared at it for a long moment.

Then ze turned toward it and started walking.

Xiuying's head felt foggy.

She and Abdul were just trying to have a bit of fun, really. They were fast friends, a janitor's son and an intern at the hospital. He was on a mission to explore every part of the hospital. Tonight, she'd decided to tag along for the ride.

Goofy, happy Abdul. Where was he now? Hopefully safe at home with his mother.

A metal tree, twisted veins of unnatural roots in a chamber of stone.

A fallen patient surrounded by doctors wearing ceremonial robes, chanting in a language that didn't belong to this world.

Flicker.

Weird. Hopefully she hadn't forgotten anything important there.

When she first got her internship at the private hospital, it had felt like a dream come true. The hospital was known everywhere as a place where medical miracles were worked, breakthroughs in healing technology discovered every few months. And she was going to be one of the people who developed those miracles one day. This was the first step.

She still remembered when one of the hospital's doctors had come to speak at her school, all those years ago. Dr. Zygfryd showed the class pictures of a shining building, pristine, where people went to be saved. He told the story of one patient, a little girl with a rare blood cancer, who had come in with weeks left to live. He described how he and his co-workers had stayed up long nights, not just researching a cure, but also getting to know the child and making sure she was safe. That was the kind of special attention that patients at the hospital received. You weren't just a patient. You were a guest, a valued customer.

Xiuying hung on to his every word, listening as he described the girl's condition.

The doctor was compassionate, intelligent, and most of all, selfless. He saved peoples' lives. At that moment, Xiuying had decided to become a doctor at that very hospital when she grew up.

The patient's body trembles, contracts, writhes in ways that it was never supposed to bend in.

Flicker.

She stared at the wall of her room. These images felt burned into the screen of her mind, impossible to ignore. Then, just as quickly, they were gone like they had never existed in the first place.

The hippocampus, she thought to herself, is the part of the brain that converts short-term memory to long-term. It can be damaged by certain drugs, such as dopamine agonists, sedatives, and those that affect blood pressure. But that couldn't be the case. She was far too risk-aware to take drugs.

Was it possible something else had tampered with her brain? Not a chemical drug, but something... more metaphysical?

Highly improbable. Magic was only a rumor, a whispered thing that everyone spoke of but no one could confirm. She had no time for unconfirmed theories. Physiology was real. Good grades and good internships were real.

She looked outside the window, where the gleaming white lights of the city stopped abruptly at the edge of the rainforest. A clear division between light and darkness, life and death, safe and forbidden, all overseen by the shining silhouette of the hospital. Where was Abdul? They had entered the hospital, he had overridden the wires in the elevator, and then...

"Someone's there."

"Run."

Flicker.

At the hospital, you weren't just a patient, you were a valued guest.

At the hospital, you weren't just a patient, you were fuel for a ritual reaction.

"You shouldn't have come here."

Abdul's mother fixes her eyes on us. The guards move in.

Flicker.

Xiuying searched "memory magic." She found an article written by someone several years ago on a dubious website. Long-term memories are stored via a complex interaction between the hippocampus, amygdala, and cortex. Certain applications of black magic can disrupt this interaction, allowing memories to be erased or altered. The subjects of such magic have described feelings of "brain fog" or "flickering" in their memories.

She wasn't sure what had flickered out of her mind just then. She wasn't sure if it was black magic, drugs, or an instinctive trauma response from her own mind. But she was sure of three things:

Abdul was gone.

Someone didn't want her to know what she had witnessed.

And it started when they entered that hospital basement.

She wasn't the kind of person who fought these things herself. But maybe there was someone else out there who knew more, someone who could help.

She picked up her phone and searched for a number to call. The first result: Bureau of Magical Anomalies. A government agency that didn't exist on any other government website.

She dialed the number.

"Hello," she said. "I'd like to report a case of possible black magic."