The clinic was quiet, the kind of stillness that only came late in the day, when the last appointments had passed and the animals were either healing or sleeping soundly.
Lena stood in the doorway of her office, looking around at the space she’d made her own.
The soft golden light of late afternoon filtered through the window, casting long shadows across the desk where she had spent countless nights scribbling notes, cataloging herbs, and flipping through worn medical texts.
Even the usual hum of the mini-fridge and the gentle rustle of papers felt like echoes now, distant reminders of a life she was about to leave behind.
Her eyes drifted over the clutter she knew by heart: the chipped mug with faded paw prints that held her pens, the old lamp with the crooked shade, the corkboard
