Locked Down

Prologue: The Day the World Ended

The hallway stretched on forever, a tunnel of scuffed linoleum and flickering fluorescent lights. My shoes squeaked with every step, the sound hollow, swallowed by the sterile air. The walls, once a comforting beige, had turned the color of bone under the hospital’s harsh light. I walked behind my parents, our small procession led by a nurse whose white sneakers moved soundlessly over the floor. Her hands were gloved, the blue nitrile pulled tight against her skin, and she clutched a clipboard like a shield.

My mother’s breathing was loud through her mask, each inhale a wet rattle. She had a floral mask today, pale yellow with little blue flowers, but her breath had dampened the fabric, and the cheerful pattern was smeared and dark. Dad walked a step behind her, his hand hovering over her back but never quite touching. He clutched an old handkerchief in his fist, twisting it into knots, his knuckles white and bloodless.

When the nurse stopped, we nearly collided into her. The room on the other side of the glass was a wash of pale green and silver. My brother lay in the center, his bed surrounded by machines that blinked and hissed and beeped with an unsettling rhythm. The tubes and wires draped over him like vines. His chest rose and fell with mechanical precision, his skin stretched thin over sharp bones. His face, distorted by the transparent plastic mask, was waxy and pale. The only color was the red of his lips, cracked and dry.

The attending nurse’s voice crackled through the intercom. “You can’t come in. It’s not safe.” Her eyes were the only part of her face visible, rimmed in red, tired. “You can talk to him through the microphone.”