White-washed walls, glossy floors, fluorescent lights. Everything's so glaringly bright and un-naturally clean. And not a single soul in sight.

Head throbbing painfully, she tried to press on with her work, struggling hard not to be resentful, not to wish she was snuggled up in her bed instead. It's going to be a long day. Time crawls, deathly slow, when you most hope for it to zoom by.

She blinked away tears from the incessant pounding in her temples that were pricking her eyes. Her nose flashed signs of it threatening to run amok, accumulating fluid that was not supposed to be there. Goosebumps budded all over and in spite of the long-sleeved green surgical gown and maroon scrubs she wore, she shivered. Tried in vain to warm up by wrapping her icy arms around herself for a brief moment. But knowing it wouldn't work, she gave up, bit down on her lips hard and picked up her scalpel in her gloved hand, making a careful, precise incision on the chest of the even colder, slightly bluish body on the steel table before her.