The hours bleed away like the sluggish trickle of an open wound. I move through the motions of scrubbing and scouring the dingy washroom tiles in a daze, inhabiting my task yet feeling strangely detached - as though my physical form is simply an empty vessel acting on base instinct.
My mind, battered and frayed from enduring one gut-wrenching blow after another, has retreated into some dark, quiet recess of itself. A place where the raw, screaming anguish over Ava's impending loss can't reach, at least for fleeting stretches of time.
I'm vaguely aware of the brutish guard keeping his usual disdainful vigil, grunting the occasional insult or jeering remark about my slothful pace. His vile words register only as a dull, irritating buzz on the edges of my consciousness before slipping away
