The hospital corridors were white and cold, the kind of white that hurt your eyes and the kind of cold that seeped into your bones. It was a relentless, clinical white—the walls, the ceiling, the fluorescent lights that buzzed overhead in a monotone hum. There were no paintings on these walls, no distractions, nothing to soften the harshness of the space. 

Even the floor tiles were white, polished to a high shine that reflected the lights above in dizzying patterns. Every surface smelled of antiseptic and bleach, sharp and chemical, the smell of sickness and death and the desperate, clinging hope that tried to hold them both at bay. The cold came up through the floor, through the thin soles of Sitara's ruined sandals, through the chair she sat on, through her very bones until she was shivering without realizing it.