The hospital hummed with an unnatural calm. It wasn't the kind of calm that came after peace—but the eerie quiet that comes before a storm. Kamsi walked through the corridor, her hands trembling slightly, her eyes darting to every crevice, every face, every whisper. Since the midnight meeting that never truly happened, she'd been spiraling into a deeper layer of paranoia.
And yet, she couldn't stop. The photograph—the blood, the slipper, the message—it was all burned into her brain. And Ada? Gone. Transferred suddenly, with no trace and no warning. The pieces were aligning in a terrifying way.
She entered the nurses' lounge, where Mfon was waiting, her face pale.
"You look like you saw a ghost," Mfon said quietly.
"I might as well have. Ada didn't meet me last night. But someone else did. And they left me this."
She handed over the photograph. Mfon stared, her breath catching.
"This is... this is from the same room you told me about. But—who is this woman?"
"I don't know," Kamsi replied. "But the message said I might be the last."
Mfon swallowed hard. "Kamsi, we have to go to someone. This is serious."
"And say what? That I found a photo anonymously dropped by someone in the fog at midnight? They'll call me delusional."
"Then let's be strategic," Mfon said, her voice steadying. "Let's gather more proof. Real proof. Dates, names, patterns. If this is bigger than Rume, then we're not just dealing with one bad doctor—we're dealing with a system."
Over the next week, the two nurses became secret archivists. They dug through old patient files, records of transfers, unexplained discharges, staff who vanished from the rosters. The deeper they dug, the more sinister it became.
Six nurses in the last two years had transferred without notice.
Three patients had died mysteriously—no autopsy, no investigation.
Two janitors had been dismissed, reasons sealed.
All records intersected at one location: the east wing.
And one man appeared in every file.
Dr. Rume.
Kamsi barely slept. Every time she closed her eyes, she imagined what happened in that storage room. Every drop of blood, every piece of evidence… erased by someone who thought he was untouchable.
Late one evening, as she walked toward the east wing under the guise of checking inventory, she felt it again—that chill, that sensation of being watched. She paused.
A flicker of movement in the window's reflection.
She spun around.
No one.
Her breathing quickened.
She pushed open the door to the wing, heart pounding. The hallway yawned before her, lined with unused equipment and flickering lights.
Then she heard it.
Footsteps.
Slow. Measured.
Getting closer.
She ducked into an empty supply closet, her breath shallow. Through the slats of the closet door, she saw him—Dr. Rume, walking down the hall with a phone to his ear.
"No, she's too close now. I don't care what she saw. If she doesn't stop, we make her stop."
He paused. Then continued: "We handled Ada. We'll handle her."
Kamsi's heart dropped.
He was talking about her.
She waited until the footsteps faded, then slowly emerged from the closet. She sprinted back to the ward, where Mfon was already waiting.
"You look like you ran from a ghost," Mfon whispered.
"Rume. I just overheard him. He said they handled Ada—and they're going to handle me."
Mfon paled. "We need to go to the press."
Kamsi shook her head. "Not yet. If we go public now without irrefutable proof, they'll twist it against us. We need someone on the inside. Someone with power."
Mfon hesitated. "There's someone. But he's not a fan of nurses."
"Who?"
"The Director of Clinical Affairs. Dr. Meka."
Dr. Meka was known for his unflinching principles and impossible standards. He rarely smiled, never entertained gossip, and fired three people in one month for misfiling reports.
But he hated Rume.
That night, Kamsi printed everything they had—copies of the old patient records, the list of sudden transfers, the photograph—and placed them in an envelope. The next morning, she left it anonymously on Dr. Meka's desk.
They waited.
Nothing happened for two days.
Then suddenly, the hospital was buzzing.
Dr. Rume hadn't shown up for work. Rumors floated. Administrative audit. Emergency suspension. Confidential hearing.
Then a nurse from records whispered to Kamsi, "He's been summoned to Abuja. Investigation. Someone snitched."
Kamsi felt dizzy. Relief. Fear. Validation. All at once.
She returned to the window she had once stood by, watching the sun hide behind clouds. This time, her eyes weren't searching—they were seeing.
She had done something.
She had started something.
And then her phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number:
"You think it's over? That was just the surface. Dig deeper. The real rot lies in the foundation."
Attached was another photo.
A baby. Wrapped in hospital linens. Abandoned. Date: 2018.
Room: East Wing.
Mother: Unknown.
Doctor on duty: Rume.
Her hand trembled.
She turned to Mfon. "We're not done."
Mfon took the photo and stared at it in silence.
"That's not just an abandoned baby," she finally whispered. "That's the hospital's old linen pattern. We stopped using those in 2018. And look—look closely—there's a faint signature tag on the corner."
Kamsi squinted. It read: Property of Department C – Gynae Ward.
"Department C? But that's been sealed off for years," she said.
"Exactly. Kamsi, someone didn't abandon that child. Someone hid it. And they didn't want anyone to know."
Kamsi's chest tightened. The silence in the corridors, the files erased, the whispered threats. It was all connected.
They had just cracked the surface—and now, the real truth was clawing its way to the light.