It was 5:37 a.m. when Kamsi opened her door and found the envelope.
No name. No address. Just one word on the front:
"Forgive."
She didn't open it—not immediately. She stared at it as though it might vanish. The hallway was quiet, sterile. She lived on the third floor of a compound designed for government workers—clean, ordinary, nothing ominous.
But this letter didn't belong here.
With gloved hands, she slid it into a ziplock bag.
Later, when the sun rose high enough to flatten the shadows in her room, she opened it.
Inside was a single photograph.
A younger version of Kamsi, standing in scrubs, blood on her gloves. A stretcher in the background. A woman's bare legs visible beneath a green hospital sheet.
And behind her—just barely in frame—stood Adaora.
Her eyes locked on the camera.
Unsmiling. Unblinking.
Watching.
"You need to report this," said Ovie, her colleague in Internal Medicine.
They sat in the doctor's lounge, his voice low, his coffee untouched.
"I don't even know how she got this photo," Kamsi replied.
"She's stalking you. That's not patient behavior. That's obsession."
"I want to understand why. There's more to this than psychosis."
Ovie sighed. "She's dangerous. That's what this is."
Kamsi looked away.
But part of her wasn't afraid.
Part of her... felt responsible.
That afternoon, Kamsi entered Room 405 again.
Adaora was drawing. A page torn from a nursing chart had been transformed into charcoal sketches—eyes, repeated over and over again. Some wide, some shut. Some bleeding.
"You shouldn't be in here unsupervised," Kamsi said.
Adaora didn't look up. "You came anyway."
"What do you want from me?"
Adaora's pencil stilled.
"I want you to remember what you did."
Kamsi blinked. "What I—?"
"You let her die. My sister. Amara. You called her 'ectopic case number seven.' You didn't even learn her name."
"That's not true."
Adaora finally looked up. "Isn't it? Then why do you only remember her now?"
Back in her office, Kamsi reviewed the autopsy file again.
Amara's body had been received late. Resuscitation was brief. Cause of death: internal hemorrhage from undiagnosed ectopic rupture.
But a line in the margin caught Kamsi's eye for the first time.
"Previous visit 2 months earlier. Complaints dismissed. No follow-up."
Kamsi's signature was at the bottom of that line.
She closed her eyes.
The weight of her own name felt like a sentence.
That night, she couldn't sleep.
The photo. The eyes. The sketch.
They looped in her mind like an unfinished diagnosis.
Why hadn't she followed up on Amara? Why hadn't she remembered the woman who died in silence?
Was Adaora right? Had she become so hardened by loss that she no longer saw individuals—just cases, just symptoms?
At 2:15 a.m., the nurse's call startled her.
"Adaora's missing."
Kamsi dressed in under five minutes. Rain was falling in sheets as she arrived. Her shoes sank into mud behind the wards.
They found Adaora barefoot, standing near the hospital's incinerator room. She held a patient file in her hand—singed at the edges.
When Kamsi called out, Adaora turned slowly.
"She didn't even get a grave," she said. "They burned her things. Dumped them like waste. No one even asked me."
Kamsi approached cautiously. "We can talk about this. But not here."
Adaora's hand trembled. "You think you're the doctor. The healer. But you're just another kind of undertaker. One who uses silence instead of soil."
She dropped the file.
It fell into the mud, pages flaring open like broken wings.
Kamsi didn't move.
She just stood there, heart aching, realizing for the first time that this wasn't about delusion.
It was about justice.
And it had come wearing a hospital gown.
It was 5:37 a.m. when Kamsi opened her door and found the envelope.
No name. No address. Just one word written on the front in sharp, angry ink:
"Forgive."
She didn't open it immediately.
Instead, she stood at the doorway, staring down at the envelope like it might burst into flames in her hands. The hallway was quiet—sterile, like a hospital corridor after visiting hours. She could hear the distant humming of the neighbour's generator, a dog barking down the street, a crying infant muffled through the wall.
But none of it reached her. Her eyes were fixed on that envelope.
It was too carefully placed.
And the handwriting—it was familiar in a disturbing way.
With gloved fingers, she slid it into a ziplock bag and locked it inside her drawer.
By the time the sun rose high enough to bleach the colours off her curtains, she pulled it back out and slit it open.
Inside was a single photograph.
It wasn't just any photo—it was her, taken five years ago, during her residency.
She stood in scrubs, surgical mask dangling from her neck, gloves smeared with blood. A stretcher sat behind her, barely in focus, and beneath a green emergency sheet, the outline of a woman's bare legs.
But that wasn't the part that made her throat tighten.
Just behind her, half-hidden by shadow, stood Adaora.
Her eyes locked on the camera.
Unsmiling.
Unblinking.
Watching.
"You need to report this," Ovie said.
They sat in the breakroom at the hospital, the hum of the air conditioner sounding louder than usual. Ovie had known Kamsi since internship, and this was the first time he'd seen her visibly unsettled.
"I don't know how she got the photo," Kamsi replied, her voice flat.
"She's stalking you. This isn't a patient's outburst. This is strategic."
Kamsi's eyes flicked up. "You think she's dangerous?"
"I think you're pretending she's not."
She didn't reply. But her silence said more than words could.
Part of her wasn't scared of Adaora.
Part of her... felt responsible for her.
Kamsi returned to Ward B later that afternoon.
The room was dim, the blinds drawn. Adaora sat cross-legged on the bed, scribbling with a blunt charcoal pencil. She had no sketchpad, only a torn page from a hospital chart.
Kamsi hesitated before entering. "You shouldn't be unsupervised."
Adaora didn't look up. "You came anyway."
"What do you want from me?"
Adaora's hand stilled.
"I want you to remember what you did."
"I don't understand—"
"You let her die," Adaora interrupted. "My sister. Amara. You called her 'ectopic case number seven.' You didn't even learn her name."
"That's not true."
Adaora finally met her eyes. "Isn't it? Then why do you only remember her now?"
The file was old—yellowed at the edges, tucked beneath piles of more recent case notes.
Amara Eze.
Kamsi's finger trembled as she flipped the page.
Complaint: Intermittent abdominal pain.Diagnosis: Suspected gastritis.Plan: Routine analgesics.Outcome: No follow-up.
Then there it was—Kamsi's own signature at the bottom of the page.
Dated two months before Amara's death.
Kamsi had missed it.
She had missed her.
She buried her face in her palms. Medical error wasn't a line on paper—it was a silence that echoed for years, until someone like Adaora came to scream it into your conscience.
That night, the rain came down like judgment.
Sheets of water lashed the hospital windows. The air was thick with tension.
At 2:15 a.m., the emergency call came in: "Patient missing from psychiatric observation. Name: Adaora Eze."
Kamsi's heart slammed against her ribs.
She drove through flooded roads, headlights slicing through the dark. Her mind replayed the photo, the sketch, the whisper of "forgive."
She found Adaora barefoot, outside, near the back of the hospital—the incinerator wing.
Adaora stood in the rain, soaked to the bone, holding a half-burnt patient file.
She turned slowly as Kamsi approached.
"She didn't even get a grave," she said. "They burned her things. Dumped them like rubbish. No one asked me. No one told me."
Kamsi stopped a few steps away, her voice low. "Come inside. We can talk."
"You think this is about talking?" Adaora's voice cracked. "This is about remembering. You forgot her. Like she was just another case."
"I didn't forget."
"You did," she said, stepping closer. "You wore gloves, but your care was still bloody."
"I didn't mean to. I was exhausted. I was overwhelmed."
"So was she," Adaora whispered. "But she died."
Silence.
The file slipped from Adaora's hand. It hit the mud, pages spreading open, names and numbers blurring into the earth.
Kamsi didn't move.
Her shoes filled with rainwater. Her breath caught.
She was no longer a doctor here.
She was a witness.
A survivor of a mistake.
And a woman staring into the face of her own undoing.