The hallway at night felt more honest than it did under daytime lights. No orderly smiles, no soft questions about feelings or appetite. Just faint hums from machines, muted beeps behind closed doors, the hush snaking ahead like a guide that never forgot its shape.
Rafi padded behind the braid girl. She moved like she still belonged to the forest: head low, shoulders loose, bare feet whispering over the cold tile. Every few steps she glanced back, making sure he stayed close enough to catch her shadow.
They passed signs that meant nothing: Patient Monitoring, Staff Only, Restricted Ward. None of it stopped them. The hush made the locks lazy. It tugged at hinges and flickered hallway lights until the place seemed smaller, more breakable.
She paused at a glass double door with a keypad. Red light glowed above the latch. Her breath clouded the glass as she leaned in, studying the digits taped to the side on a forgotten clipboard. She tapped the keys once, twice — the hush purring so low in Rafi's ears it felt like a second heartbeat.
The lock clicked open like it was relieved to fail.
Beyond the door lay a wing nobody wanted kids to see: wide beds with restraints folded neatly at the corners, a windowless room humming with machines that took soft pictures of brains.
The hush seemed to stretch taller here. Rafi tasted metal on his tongue, a memory of that clearing, the hush's bone-deep song rumbling through the trees. For a second he nearly dropped to the floor, ready to dig his nails in and let it eat him again.
The braid girl grabbed his wrist. A sharp squeeze. Focus. Not here.
She pulled him past the empty beds, past a nurse's station abandoned for the night, until they found a supply closet cracked open just enough to slip inside.
Inside smelled of paper gowns and disinfectant. It felt like the forest in miniature: no windows, no eyes, only their breathing and the hush curling around their ankles like a cat demanding to be fed.
She pressed him back against the shelf and leaned her forehead to his. Her fingers were still cold from the hospital air, but the hush inside her was fever-warm.
They didn't speak. If they did, the hush would pour out too loud and someone might hear it. Instead, they stood like two seeds tucked under soil — waiting for a crack in the concrete above to break open.
Somewhere out in the main ward, a door clicked. A voice called a nurse's name, sharp with worry.
Inside the closet, the hush giggled in the dark, promising a way out if they wanted it badly enough.
Rafi closed his eyes and felt her pulse hammer against his ribs, as steady as the hush, as steady as the night that still hadn't learned how to hold them down.