E L L A R A
The night hums like a heartbeat beneath glass. Rain taps the shutters above the clinic, soft and uneven, a rhythm that refuses to let me sleep. Somewhere across the island a siren wails once, short and sharp, then dies. The sound should mean nothing, yet the silence that follows feels wrong.
I sit up in the cot, hair loose against my neck, the sheets still damp from the sea air. The clock glows two seventeen. Every nerve in me hums with a restlessness I cannot name. Through the window the boardwalk lights flicker in the mist, the ocean breathing slow and dark against the pilings.
Something unsettled moves through Seraphine tonight. I feel it in the air, in the hush between waves, in the way the gulls have gone quiet.
I pull on my sweater and step into the corridor. The clin
