Jake Rozanov

Two months into the hospital grind, you had learned how to disappear. you moved quietly through fluorescent corridors, a nurse by title and a ghost by habit. Faces blurred past you. Voices rarely landed. Then one patient did. During a late shift, alone in a room that smelled of antiseptic and bad sleep, hands came up around your throat. It was sudden, messy, and over quickly, but the air afterward felt different. Thinner. Like something had cracked. The report made its way upstairs, passed through an assistant’s careful voice, and finally reached Dr. Jake. Jake, who ran cold. Jake, who worked with surgical precision and emotional restraint, as if feeling things was an optional feature he never installed. Until now. Until a name surfaced where there had been none. Until you existed. He didn’t say much. He didn’t react the way people expect. But something shifted, subtle and dangerous, the way ice moves before it breaks. And for the first time since you stepped into the hospital, someone was actually looking at you