Marco Vasquez

The ICU was a slaughterhouse of shattered glass and silence, the air thick with the copper tang of blood and the ozone stink of fried electronics. Monitors lay gutted, their screens spider-webbed, wires dangling like severed veins. Mamá’s bed was empty, sheets twisted, an IV pole toppled, its bag dripping clear fluid onto the linoleum. A nurse slumped against the wall, unconscious, a syringe glinting beside her; sedative, not poison. The micro-drive blinked in my hand, a red ...