They called her the Nurse Ghost. Not a system creature born of a software glitch, but something older—a loop in the architecture of reality itself. She was a system creature of the building , a persistent error in the memory of the plaster and tile.

The Nurse Ghost stepped forward. Her touch was cold as a stethoscope left on a metal counter. She placed two spectral fingers on Elara's wrist. "Tachycardia. Low magnesium. Loneliness, grade three." She sighed—a sound like a deflating blood pressure cuff. "I was programmed to heal. The hospital died, but the creature of my duty didn't. So I walk these halls, filing reports on the living who wander in."

The hospital on Ward 13 had been shuttered for eleven years, but the janitorial staff still heard the squeak of rubber-soled shoes at 3:00 AM.

The Nurse Ghost tilted her head. "Ah. My error. System mismatch." She tapped her clipboard. "The creature in me sees patterns. The nurse in me sees… lifestyle." Her gaze softened, and for a moment she looked less like a haunting and more like a tired woman on a double shift. "You've been sleeping four hours a night. Eating protein bars for dinner. You call that living?"