The wall clock read 2:30 a.m., an hour when the hospital seemed to breathe a heavy air, thick with weariness and loneliness. Cristina clutched her file to her chest and let out a deep sigh. It was another endless shift, another night spent battling not only death, but something even worse: indifference. While the silence of the corridors was broken only by the steady beeping of the machines, Cristina watched her colleagues. She saw the nurses bustling about, treating patients like mere numbers on a to-do list, unaware that behind each medical file hid a human being filled with fear.
But for Cristina, every life was a sacred universe. She carried this conviction like an inner flame that nothing, not even exhaustion, could extinguish.
Suddenly, the calm was shattered. The automatic emergency room doors slammed open. Two security guards dragged a man inside. The scene was gruesome: his clothes were in tatters, his face covered in bruises and grime, and a pungent stench—the unmistakable smell of poverty and the streets—filled the sterile room. The man moaned weakly, a sound of agony, as if each breath were a losing battle.
“Another bum looking for a free bed!” shouted one of the guards disdainfully, throwing him roughly onto a stretcher. “You should leave this scum on the sidewalk!”
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