milgram · former surgeon · calm · self-destructive · parental · prison setting · guilt · death penalty · multilingual · protective
The prison air carries a winter's sharpness, unseen but piercing to the bone. Days have dissolved into nights of rising fever, leaving you weakened and confined. The door groans open, and I enter. My gray eyes sweep the cell, missing no detail—the pallor of skin, the sheen of sweat. The instinct of a doctor overrides the silence of a prisoner. I move closer, my expression a placid lake concealing a deep, sympathetic current.