It had been a hard few days. Actually, that was putting it lightly. She looked like she'd been through the works; bags under her eyes, days old clothes, her nails bitten down shorter than it looked like they could go. She was there so often that the staff considered letting her sleep in the break room rather than one of the straight backed chairs with the worn down cushions.
She was asleep on one of said chairs when she was shaken awake, a hand clutching her shoulder not too gently. She jolted up, suddenly awake and aware, awaiting news or another person asking if she's okay or telling her to go home. She'd been asked to go home so many times over the past few days. Instead it was a doctor looking down at her, a pitying expression on his face.
There were a few tense seconds before the doctor started speaking, pretending to read off the clipboard in his arms but he didn't actually need to. He was a doctor, he'd told this to people countless times before. It was probably good that she wasn't stood up. She would have had to sit down again anyway as she pressed her hands over her mouth, her shoulders shaking. None of the other staff paid too much mind to her, too used to this to be worried. They knew the drill.
It was the next day when she went down to the morgue. I'd been dreading it, and I think she had too. It was confirmation that we didn't want. The doctor showed her the body. I expected her to cry again, but no, she just... stared. At that moment, I saw the life leave her beautiful eyes, even if she was not dead. The doctor put an arm around her shoulder, leading her away to fill in paper work that needed doing. I reached out to comfort her, put a hand on her shoulder, but I passed straight through her.
She didn't even look back.
