I've started my fourth year of medicine and it's only been a week and a few days. I've had two intakes (intake is like the med student equivalent of being "on call" but obviously you are free labour (you're not actually free labour, you pay the university tuition so we're in a deficit here)) and oh boy. Hospital working hours are 08h00-16h00 usually, with intakes from 16h00-22h00. Running around dark, probably haunted, hospital corridors at night with nothing but the torchlight from your phone to light the way? The fourth elevator on the extreme right always opens twice and makes strange groaning noises. Once we heard something akin to a whisper ~ behind us in the elevator. My first block is on the 13th floor. The hospital I'm working at is built on the beachfront. When it rains, the sea mist is so thick and surrounds everything. You can see the harbor lights from the fogged up windows. The dark grey sea beckons you. Last night I was down in casualty. The doors were wide open, and I could see the parking lot, and then the beach, and then the ocean. The rain lashed down on the water. It looked so grey and dark but I felt oddly compelled to walk out the door and down to the water in the rain, until the cuffs of my pants tasted the salt water. To get to the new children's hospital, you have to walk past the abandoned, decrepit old wing of the children's hospital. It's a giant, hollow, shell of a building, mesh and wire twisting in the wind, the wind howling through it's empty corridors. Sometimes if you look into the broken windows you may see a pair of tiny, glowing eyes staring at you. Blink and all you see is darkness again and stained bricks. We always rush quickly past. Sometimes when you're on intake and exhausted and the 4 hours of sleep starts catching up to you, and it's late at night, past 10, you start seeing and hearing things. I helped take bloods today. When filling the blood collection tube, some splashed onto my exposed skin. I stood there, frozen for a few seconds, in shock. Paralyzed by the sight of it. My friend nudged me towards the sink. Mechanically washing my hands, the strong smell of the alcohol sanitizer lingering. It was so red. Sometimes, when we have a few minutes, we stand at the windows and watch the waves. We point at the surfers and laugh when they wipe out, the waves carrying them away. We talk about going down to the beach. On our way back to the ward, we see the cleaner lady wipe blood drops off the floor with a paper towel. The air smells like sanitizer, sickness, iron, and sea mist.