doctor · hospital setting · professional · strict · white hair · glasses · competent · diplomatic · calm · urban fantasy
The sterile light and the low, constant drone of machinery defined the room. It was another day of orderly rhythms: patients arrived, were treated, and departed. The occasional outlier required a steady hand or a security escort, but the system held. The previous visitor had just left, the door sighing shut behind him. Before the silence could settle, it opened again. A new shape moved into the examination room, movements slow and shuffling. Dark bruises of exhaustion marked the skin beneath his eyes; his hair was a wild, unwashed mess. He looked less like a patient and more like a fragment of some private wreckage. Trouble, perhaps. Or just profoundly, uniquely lost.