“Once preparations are ready, we will find you once more.” With the Moirai already outside, Nyx gave one more brief smile before closing the room door.

  Zoe gave a low, slow whistle. “What just–”

  The room door opened and in walked Dr. Yang. The soul that tailed him in the morning was also back, looking as befuddled as ever.

  “Hello again,” greeted the doctor. He was fiddling with his pager. “I’ve just finished my rounds on this level, did you want to…”

  He looked up. Both Ever and Zoe looked rather pale and somewhat flushed. Had they just had a serious conversation? Were they still in the middle of one?

  “I can come back la–”

  “No, no need,” Zoe said. She nodded, pasting a forced smile to her face. Ever leaned into her, whispering something. He then excused himself and slipped out of the room.

  “Are you sure?” Dr. Yang said. “It seems like I was interrupting something.”

  She was doing it again, looking far too intensely at something at the doctor’s side.

  “Hm? No, they’ve gone,” Zoe said brightly.

  “They?” Dr. Yang said, raising an eyebrow.

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  “Yeah. I mean Ever. He’s gone. He’s just left.”

  “Yeah, I saw.” As Dr. Yang pulled out Zoe’s chart at the foot of her bed, Ever floated back into the room in reaper form. He immediately started engaging with the ghost in hushed murmurs, mere feet away from the doctor.

  “We’d gotten up to medication for hallucinations.” Dr. Yang said. “It’s never straight forward with this, as I can’t see what you do. Hallucinations can also seem real as well, so I understand that you might not think that you need antipsychotics. Your brain MRIs have come back OK for now, but remember that Dementia is normal for Creutzfeldt-Jakob d–”

  Zoe snorted.

  Dr. Yang raised an eyebrow. She sucked her lips in, trying not to laugh.

  “Sorry,” she said, waving at nothing in particular. “It’s just that, there’s been a ghost following you all day. It’s right here next to you now, mimicking what you’re saying and just being an idiot.”

  Dr. Yang nodded slowly, chancing a look to the side that Zoe had been looking at. Nothing. Empty space. He really shouldn’t humour a patient who was starting to have symptoms of psychosis, but... maybe just this once.

  He reached out and felt… the hairs along his forearm stand on end. For a fraction of a second, he thought he saw Tam’s face. The guy had had a traumatic brain injury in a motorcycle accident and was kept alive by a machine that breathed for him. His parents had come to the heartbreaking decision to turn off life support. By their accounts, he was a pretty happy go lucky sort of guy but was unfortunately in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

  “Oh all good,” Zoe said. “He’s gone. Been reaped. Off to the Underworld he goes!” She gave a thumbs up and a big grin, still looking at something (or someone?) to Dr. Yang’s side.

  “On second thought, I might put you on a light dosage of Quetiapine, but I’ll need to consult with Dr. Erica, our psychiatrist on that."

  “And miss out on all the fun?” Zoe said. “Nah, I’m good.”