The day after Kamsi's disturbing discovery felt unusually quiet, like the hospital itself was holding its breath. No alarms. No screaming patients. Just silence broken only by the faint echoes of squeaky wheels on linoleum floors and the muffled clink of instruments being sterilized.
She stood by the ward window, watching as the sun struggled through heavy clouds. Her eyes weren't on the sky—they were searching for answers buried beneath her own heartbeat. Dr. Rume's name echoed in her mind like a haunting melody. A surgeon. A hero. A predator? She wanted to be wrong.
Mfon's voice startled her. "You didn't sleep last night, did you?"
Kamsi turned, offering a tired half-smile. "Was it that obvious?"
"You're pacing in slow motion like you're in a horror movie. Talk to me. What's going on?"
But Kamsi wasn't sure how to explain what she saw in that hidden storage room—the bloody bedsheet, the camera flash, the woman's slipper.
"I found something," she whispered. "Something bad. In that old storage room in the east wing."
Mfon narrowed her eyes. "How bad?"
Kamsi looked around the ward before answering. "Like… evidence-of-a-crime bad. And Dr. Rume might be involved."
Silence settled between them. Mfon blinked slowly. "You're not joking."
"I wish I was."
Mfon chewed her lip, stepping closer. "Listen, you can't say that out loud unless you're ready to prove it. People don't just go after Dr. Rume. He's practically royalty here."
"I'm not trying to go after him. I just—something feels wrong. And I need to find out what."
Mfon hesitated. "Then don't do it alone."
That afternoon, Kamsi returned to the storage room. Her heart thumped as she approached the door, this time with gloves in her pocket and her phone camera ready. But the door was locked.
She knocked.
No answer.
She turned to leave—and nearly collided with someone.
Dr. Rume.
His presence sucked the air out of the hallway. Calm. Smiling. His white coat crisp as paper. "You lost, Nurse Kamsi?"
"No, sir. Just looking for the cleaning crew."
He tilted his head slightly. "They rarely use this wing. Poor lighting. Broken tiles. It's practically abandoned."
"Right," she said, trying to steady her voice.
He smiled. "You seem curious. That's good. Curiosity leads to growth. But it can also lead to accidents."
Kamsi froze.
"Be careful," he added, eyes lingering a second too long before walking past her.
As soon as he turned the corner, Kamsi rushed to the nurses' station and scribbled down her thoughts. If she couldn't get into the room, she needed something stronger—proof that someone else had seen what she saw.
She remembered Ada, the night nurse who once hinted that not everything in the hospital was as it seemed.
At the canteen later, Kamsi found Ada sipping tea.
"Ada, can I ask you something?"
Ada looked up, her eyes cautious. "Depends."
"You've worked here longer than anyone. Do you… ever feel like there are things going on that shouldn't be?"
Ada sipped her tea. "Like what?"
"Like secrets. Cover-ups. Patients being moved without documentation."
Ada paused, setting her cup down. "You saw something, didn't you?"
Kamsi nodded slowly.
Ada leaned in. "Then you need to decide: are you a nurse, or are you an investigator?"
"What if I can be both?"
Ada sighed. "Then you better start praying. This hospital is good at pretending. But beneath the surface? There's rot. Deep rot. And once you dig it up, you can't put it back."
Kamsi swallowed hard. "Can you help me?"
Ada's eyes searched hers. "I can give you names. Nurses who quit suddenly. Cases that were closed too fast. But you'll be risking more than your job."
"I have to know the truth."
Ada nodded. "Then meet me tonight. Behind the oxygen storage unit. Midnight. And come alone."
Midnight arrived with thick fog. Kamsi's shoes crunched on gravel as she tiptoed around the back of the building. She could barely see a few feet ahead.
Then a figure emerged.
"Ada?"
"No," the voice said. "She's gone."
Kamsi's blood ran cold.
"Gone where?"
The figure stepped closer, but not into the light. "She left the hospital. Transferred. Suddenly."
Kamsi stared. "Who are you?"
The voice hesitated. "Someone who knows you're in danger. They know you're digging. Stop before you vanish like the others."
And just like that, the figure disappeared into the mist.
Kamsi turned to run—but found a small envelope lying on the ground where the figure had stood.
Inside, a single photo: the same storage room, but taken weeks ago. Same bloodstained bed. Same slipper. Different victim.
Her hands trembled.
Beneath the photo, scrawled in ink:
"You're not the first. But you might be the last."
Kamsi staggered back into the hospital, heart still pounding, the photo clenched tightly in her hand. She moved like a ghost through the corridors, unnoticed and unseen. Her mind wasn't just racing—it was spiraling.
She didn't sleep that night.
Instead, she lay on her narrow dorm bed, staring at the ceiling, the flicker of the overhead light casting dancing shadows. The questions kept coming: How many? How long? How deep does this go?
By morning, her face was pale and her hands shaky, but her resolve had solidified. If she was going to do this, she needed allies. Real ones. Not whispers in the fog.
The first person she thought of was Mfon. She wasn't just a friend—she was a nurse who believed in truth, no matter how hard it was to face.
When Kamsi told her everything—the photo, the meeting, Ada's disappearance—Mfon stared at her for a long time before speaking.
"You can't fight shadows with your bare hands," she said. "We need light. We need data."
"What kind of data?"
"Patient records. Transfer logs. Security footage. Anything they didn't mean to leave behind."
Kamsi frowned. "That's illegal."
"So is murder," Mfon snapped. "And if someone's killing patients or staff in this hospital, hiding it under the white coat of authority, we owe it to them to uncover the truth."
Kamsi took a shaky breath. "Then we go in tonight."
That night, the records room smelled of old paper and stale secrets.
They used a borrowed key from a nurse on leave, slipping past the late-shift receptionist with forged signatures and fake smiles.
The computer systems were ancient, requiring a log-in code that Mfon had memorized from watching one of the doctors.
They started with archived transfer lists—names, conditions, destinations. Kamsi's fingers flew across the keyboard.
There. Four patients from the past six months. All coded as "discharged," but with no final reports. No signatures. Just… gone.
Mfon found something worse.
"Nurse Celia. Nurse Ife. Nurse Chuka. All left the hospital abruptly. No resignation letters. No HR updates. Just stopped clocking in one day."
"And nobody asked questions?"
"Apparently not."
Kamsi's skin prickled.
Then they found a document buried in a mislabeled folder—something that looked like an internal memo. It had been meant for deletion.
"To all department heads:
Inquiries about recent disciplinary absences are to be referred directly to the Director's Office. There is no need to concern staff with sensitive matters beyond their scope of duty."
"Sensitive matters?" Mfon whispered. "That's how they cover it."
But before they could read further, the door creaked open.
A silhouette stood in the frame.
Tall. Still. Silent.
Kamsi slammed the laptop shut and reached for Mfon's hand.
The light flicked on.
Dr. Rume.
"Good evening, ladies," he said smoothly. "Working late?"
Neither of them answered.
"I'm afraid this area is restricted. Would you like me to escort you out… or report this as misconduct?"
His voice was polite. Too polite. The kind that curled around your neck like silk—right before it strangled.
Mfon tried to speak, but Kamsi raised her chin. "We'll leave."
Dr. Rume nodded. "Wise choice."
They exited with the weight of his eyes on their backs. And as they turned the corner, Kamsi whispered, "He knows."
Mfon nodded. "And now we do too."
Back in their dorm, Kamsi printed the patient names, the photo, and the transfer records. She slid them all into a file marked "Laundry Inventory" and placed it inside her personal locker, hidden beneath her scrubs.
She backed it up on two flash drives—one she kept, one she mailed to her cousin in Abuja, labeled as "med school notes."
As she sealed the envelope, she whispered, "If anything happens to me… let this tell the story."
But Kamsi wasn't ready to die.
Not yet.
Not until the wounds had names.
And salt.