Everything In Your Power

I wandered through the dark hallways, trying my hardest to block the sounds that echoed ceaselessly through the hospital. The rough coughs that ripped from the throats of the dying surrounded me everywhere I went. It was my personal hell.

I was already growing impatient with the current situation I was in. Having only just arrived at the hospital at sunset to relieve the human doctors who had been slaving all day, my talent was being squandered. I didn’t need to go live it out in the dark until it seemed that I had gone home and slept. I wanted to stay on, help those who died when I was feigning sleep.

The sick were so far gone, however, that I doubted it would matter if I stayed for the entirety of the day. Through my day, I would watch human after human die of the disease that ravaged their bodies. I had to listen to them struggle to fill their lungs with precious air, airways constricted with blood.

It was hardly what one would call fair, having to keep up this charade while hundreds died. It was doing nothing for my morale.

Not to mention, despite everything I’d learned in decades past, I had gone against everything and grown attached. I had grown fond of two humans – humans, who’s lifespan was short enough without the sickness chopping it in half.

I was cursing myself mentally as I reached the door to their room, and I halted to stare at the black number on the white slab of wood. The cold seventeen only reminded me of my previous argument. The sick humans in this room were a mother and son, ages thirty-six and seventeen respectively. The boy hadn’t even begun to experience life, and the mother was hardly old in human years. Yet, curse it all, their lives were quickly being snuffed out like a candle flame. It made me, the damned being that I was, wish I could take their place and suffer for them. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, damn them to this life, however. Death would surely be more enjoyable than an eternally miserable existence. I had to tell myself that, to make the passing of the humans that came to me seem less torturous. It never fully took away the empty feeling that was enveloping me even as I stood there, staring at the door.