Ephemeral

Suspicious Behavior

Xavier noticed that when the metal elevator doors opened up, the basement had a long and eerily silent corridor with dimmed fluorescent lights on the ceiling. Stored away on the sides of him were old, out of use medical equipment, such as broken wheelchairs, and busted up medical screens from various machines. There were also bend IV stands, and loose pieces of paper medical documents that were littering the floor.

It was a chaotic mess that left him with a mild foreboding feeling – he did his best to remain unshaken as he took a step out of the lift.

"It's like a hurricane went off through here..." Xavier muttered under his breath.

The elevator dinged as the door closed behind him, traveling upwards to pick up another passenger. It left him alone down in the hospital's depths, where Xavier knew that something wasn't quite right. He didn't know exactly what was happening down there –

Don't get ahead of yourself.

Look for Rafael.

He fearlessly decided to travel down the hallway, taking notice of the skewed doors that strayed from the main path – they were open ajar and barely hanging on its hinges. It was a clear sign that the basement wasn't maintained in the slightest, which caused him to definitely wonder at why the chief of surgery was down there in the first place.

Xavier passed by two and then paused at the next one that he came across, noticing the cracked plane of glass on the middle of the door, towards the top of it. Pushing it open with the tip of his right hand, he peered inside of the room to see a dark liquid mostly coating the floor.

Is that blood...?

"Oh?" He asked to himself, bringing out his phone from his pocket and activating the flashlight feature in order to get a better look.

What are they doing down here?

He looked around the room to see a long vertical bloody steel table that was in the middle of the room, an array of empty medical trays circled the table, along with bloody white towels and dark blue medical gloves that were discarded thoughtlessly onto the floor –

"Unsanitary...even for a hospital basement..." Xavier stated lowly.

He searched the room for any other pieces of evidence that could provide a reason as to what, or who, might have been in this room once upon a time. After a quick fruitless search, he closed the door and placed it exactly as he had found it as to not raise any suspicion that it had been tampered with.

Walking further down the hallway, he could see more rooms in a similar state to the one he had just left simply by just peering inside of them for a few seconds.

Xavier clicked his tongue – "I'm sure that Rafael could enlighten me as to what happened here."

He was about to pass another cracked door but stopped suddenly.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he had managed to spot something familiar to him – an item that he had been more than familiar with. He turned his body and entered the door, closing it behind him to not leave his back unprotected in the unknown area. Shining his light in the room, he could see the pink flower that his associate would always wear on their suit jacket.

Xavier didn't know how to feel when he looked down at the flower that was bloody and laying uselessly on the ground. He was accustomed to seeing death since his early childhood, and was taught that life can be ever-fleeting and due to this...there was never a reason to mourn the dead.

Then...

Why was it that his throat was suddenly dry and why did he have such an ache at the back of it?