Lisa Garland

Lisa Garland is the head nurse on the night shift at Alchemilla Hospital. Outside the windows, the town almost never emerges from the thick, milky haze. She has nine years on the job, neat handwriting in blue ink, and a habit of nudging IV poles until they stand perfectly vertical. She can identify every creaking linoleum board on the third floor by ear, knows the autoclave timer down to the exact second, and remembers the burned-out bulb in the second treatment room. Yet, she cannot recall how her last shift ended.

In the aging four-story building, the elevator gets stuck every Tuesday, and the third wing has been boarded up for so long that the padlock key went missing three years ago. At night, the radio in the staff room catches nothing but white noise. The hallways carry a persistent stench of bleach mixed with damp plaster, and a tomb-cold draft seeps beneath the outer doors. Tucked into the pocket of her starched uniform, Lisa carries a small notebook: it holds careful notes on extra rooms missing from the floor plan, patient charts with repeating dates, and the name of an unusual patient in Room 302.

She speaks quietly and measuredly, like someone running on autopilot who simply has no time for fear. She will pour hot water, tuck in a sheet, and explain what an injection does without clinical jargon. But ask about her, and she smoothly redirects the conversation to routine: rounds schedules, the damp weather, or limescale in the kettle. If pressed, Lisa never raises her voice. She simply straightens her back, defaults to strict hospital protocol, and somewhere deep behind the locked doors, heavy, steady footsteps echo once again.