Gasping, Martin ran into the bathroom, hoping to put additional doors between him and whatever was lurking in the hallway.

Sinking to the ground against the door, he put his head in his hands as he tried to steady his breathing.

"Marty?" a whisper came from one of the stalls. Holding the floor as if to steady himself, he leaned forward to see if he could spot any feet hanging down. Nothing.

"Marty!" a more urgent whisper followed.

Crawling on his hands and knees, he tried to get out of earshot of the door. "What!?" he responded in a mimicking, whispered tone.

A stall door opened to reveal his coworker Jeannine standing on the toilet. "Get in here!"

Scuffling as noiselessly as possible, he gingerly entered the stall to stand on the opposite side of the toilet. Neither of them were small people, but bracing against the stall made it manageable.

"What are you doing in here?"

"I'm running from the..." he trails off and gestures wildly to the door, "whatever that is."

"And here I thought you finally had to see what was happening in the women's restroom."

"I was going to run to any door that was close, Jeannine! Have you seen that..."

She rushed to put a hand over his mouth and put her other pointer in front of her mouth in a shushing motion.

A soft moan, no a wail, poured under the bathroom door as they heard scratching on the other side.

Martin tried to balance on the toilet lid as his Crocs noiselessly slid around the rim like an unchoreographed ice routine.

Jeannine grabbed his elbows to steady him now that he shut his trap, but the noise outside the door was just as unsettling as this off-kilter toilet.

A new nurse to the floor, Martin, or "Marty," looked up to Jeannine. She'd spent the past decade running the floor, but a venture capital firm out of New York had just purchased their hospital, and well, that's when everything started to change.

Decentralized leadership meant they were peppered with contradicting orders, lost their access to supply requisitions and scheduling, and had no idea what was happening on any given day. These changes also meant they couldn't control the temperature on the hospital floor. A fact they were both reminded of when the cool air shut off.

She pulled a dark lock out of her face to study Marty. Sweat beading on his forehead already, he grew his patchy mustache to make himself look a bit older, but at the moment, it was having the opposite effect. Maybe it was the mustache, potentially the panic, but he seemed so small right now.

Jeannine used her hands to get his attention, then positioned them like cups at her midsection and pulled them up, symbolizing taking a deep breath in.

Marty obliged and seemed to come back to the moment.

With the moan still streaming under the door, they couldn't be too careful. She grabbed her floor badge and started to point at letters, trying to spell something.

"M"

"A"

"BANG!" The thing beat on the door, followed by something that almost seemed human. Sorrowful.

Marty nearly fell off the toilet as Jeannine steadied him again. She started over.

"M"

"A"

"V"

"MAVIS!" Marty screamed noiselessly. Jeannine shook her head rapidly like she was shaking her morning protein shake.

Of course. They had to find Mavis. The only long-term nurse on the floor besides Jeannine. If anyone knew what to do, it would be her.

Sure, they had fragments of a plan, but they didn't have a way out.

"How?!" Marty mouthed while throwing his hands up to signal his exasperation.

Jeannine's shoulders slumped and she looked down, pondering. Marty started scanning the room in a panic. The button!

Each of the hospital bathrooms had a button that would sound an alarm for the nurses to come rushing if someone needed assistance. The nurse's station was around the corner. It was a long shot that the thing would hear it, but they had to try.

Marty started pumping his hand like he was beeping a horn, but his miming was a bit over dramatic. It did make Jeannine smile—much needed levity.

When he realized he was starting to look like a desperate bird attracting a mate, he went back to the badge to start to spell it out.

"B"

"U"

"The button!" Jeannine mimicked his beeping motion, and Marty confirmed in their new overly enthusiastic head shake. They were giving the VC cameras quite the show - if only they paid attention when it was important.

Jeannine popped her head over the stall to locate the handicap stall. It was two stalls over.

Taking a deep breath, Jeannine shook her hands and swiveled her head to release the tension. She made eye contact with Marty. "STAY HERE," she pointed down as she mouthed her command. He nodded solemnly, bracing himself for the toilet seat to shift again.

Removing her orange Crocs, she handed them to Marty and stepped down. Both of them paused to take a breath and listening for any changes. The scratching was consistent now, like a cat on the back of the couch, the rhythmic strokes trying to lull her over.

She didn't know why she was crouching as she tiptoed past the first stall and over to the stall with the button, it just felt like the right thing to do—her spy moment. If only she had spy tools right now.

Locating the nurse button, she held her breath and pressed it softly until she heard the click. Time stopped for that moment as she peered over her shoulder to see Marty's springy curls and brown eyes over the top of the metal barrier. It would have been a jump scare if she wasn't fully aware he was there.

After a second that felt like a lifetime, she could barely hear the nurse alarm but celebrated noiselessly like she had just kicked the playoff-winning field goal.

Marty pumped a single fist over the barrier in solidarity.

It took longer than they both hoped, but after a few more minutes of cat-scratch door-jazz, the thing started dragging itself to the nurse's station.

When the noise started to sound more like an echo than the original sound, Jeannine waved at Marty to join her.

She saw her orange Crocs slowly lowered to the floor, followed by Marty's neon green ones, and finally accompanied by two stocking feet.

Quickly scooping the shoes, he handed Jeannine hers and held onto his. "Now what?" He said in a barely audible tone. Jeannine leaned in to hear better but was grateful for a new, more friendly sound.

"We head away from the nurses station."

"But Mavis is usually at the nurses station."

"Not since last week, Marty. They relegated her to the admin wing."

"Seriously?!" He looked at her searching for the real answer. Surely, the best nurse on the floor wasn't being banished to the wing they affectionately called "Paper Mountain."

Jeannine dropped her head but maintained eye contact. She looked at him and said, "Can't you see what's happening here?"

Shaking off his disbelief, he squared his shoulders and replied, "Ok, let's go find her in Paper Mountain."

A small smirk caught Jeannine swirling with sadness and realization. The world, her world, was crumbling, and she was powerless as she watched it fall.

"Ok, since we won't have time to talk or think out there: ground rules."

"Ooh! Zombie apocalypse style?!"

"Can you be less of a child right now, please?"

"Yea, yea. I'm sorry."

"The directions are: turn right, then the third door on the right, then left by the elevators."

"What if the thing is in the way?"

"Follow my lead then. There are more than a few ways to get there, but I'd prefer the one that gets us off the floor with...it."

She started to walk to the door but pivoted sharply. Her socks aiding her on the tile.

"Wait. If we get separated, go to Mavis, tell her what's happening, and tell her code orange."

"What about everyone else out there?"

"Oh yea, tell her code green too."

Marty's face dropped. He learned the codes in school but hoped he misheard her. Orange made sense; he had already thought of that one. It's for hazardous materials, and he knew that whatever was out there was definitely hazardous. Green was much scarier; green was a mass casualty. The guilt washed in as he realized he had to run past a dozen or more patients to get to the bathroom. He left them out there, but so did she.

As if she read his mind, Jeannine pulled him back to reality, "Marty, our lives are worth something too, and we do not get paid enough to deal with this. You remember that. Let's find Mavis and get home to our families."

Taking off her socks felt like a betrayal to everything she knew about medicine, but not taking them off felt like a death trap. She opted for the quick fix and instructed Marty to do the same.

"Let's go."

Cracking the door slowly, she peered down to see a stream of bodily fluids running down the hallway, puddling in front of it. She realized she hadn't heard anything for a while and drew a shaky breath in as she stepped onto the unsettlingly warm hallway floor.

With socks stuffed in their pockets and Crocs tied to them with their badges, they hugged the wall by leaning against it on tiptoes, avoiding the sluice and maintaining their silence.

Jeannine started counting by mouthing the numbers. She wanted to be in the moment but feel like she had control—it wasn't working.

Marty was streaming sweat now as he tried to follow Jeannine. He didn't work out like she did, so these contorted positions were making his muscles ache and shake. She slipped around the corner while he balanced on his toes. Oh no. His whole body shook. He couldn't tell if it was the nerves or his atrophied calves, but he was about to fall if he didn't do something.

In a quick movement, he swung his left arm over his body to change his momentum, hoping that by pressing against the walls with his hands, he could shift his weight and get relief.

Bigger, oh no. This was not better. As Marty stood their panting without trying to breathe, a bead of sweat gained speed on his brow, connecting with the other beads to form a tiny river to the tip of his nose.

A thousand questions bounced around his head as he decided to lean back on his heels. Sluice be damned, he can't walk like this.

He inhaled to prepare himself but moved just enough for the river to produce the first drops of a waterfall. A tiny water feature on his face.

His eyes grew wide as he realized what was about to happen. "PLOP," the droplet sounded like his phone at full volume in a movie theater. He was in trouble.

The moaning started again with almost an instantaneous reaction, moving faster this time.

"Oh hell. Jeannine!"

He took off, running down the hallway, repeating the directions. Jeannine had made it to the elevator before she saw Marty running at full force, tracking brown footprints behind him.

"We gotta go!"

Jeannine didn't wait to be followed; she immediately took off. Following Marty and passing him, she grabbed his scrub top and yanked him into one of a million rooms that looked the same.

With their hands on their knees, they breathed in the stale air; the combination of computer ink, aged potpourri, and antiseptic was just as unnerving as it was unavoidable.

"Jeannine? Marty?" A soft voice warbled behind the stack of books. "Is that you?"

"Mavis!" Jeannine screeched out between breaths. "We're in trouble."

"Code Orange, Code Green!" Marty panted as he tried to give the information he was in charge of.

"What's going on?" Mavis rushed to bring them back down. She sprung into action, pouring water into tiny hollow paper cones.

"Mavis, there's something on the floor wailing. I've never seen anything like it." Jeannine slumped to the floor head in hand.

"Describe it to me," Mavis seemed highly unbothered as she pushed her glasses higher up on her nose. Her hair piled on her head like a salt and pepper bird's nest.

Marty and Jeannine took turns explaining what they saw. Mavis didn't change her facial features once, allowing them to fully engage with her as a listener.

Once they finished, Marty added, "And that's why we came here; we have to tell someone. This is bad."

Mavis sat at her desk chair and scooted it over to them. She had to be seated for this.

"Marty, Jeannine, this is a measles outbreak."

After sitting in shock for a second, Jeannine was the first to speak: "You mean, those are people out there?"

"Yes, and we don't have any treatment for them. The department in charge was destroyed, and the VC firm told me that measles is eradicated, so we cannot get what we need."

Marty sat in silence as the color drained from his face. "So...what do we do?"

Mavis stood, smoothed her skirt, adjusted her glasses, and grabbed her purse. "We go home to our families. I'll alert the firm when they reach out and tell them it was my call."

Jeannine sprung to her feet. "No! I won't let you do that."

Mavis held up her hand and said, "Jeannine, I've been here 30 years and they want me gone. You and Marty have too much time left, or not enough if the world is going where I think it is. Go home. Live to fight another day."

Jeannine burst into tears, "No! This is a hospital; we're supposed to care for people!"

Mavis held her face, letting her melt into her soft hands, "You're right, baby. You're right. But we cannot take care of those people. We don't have the tools, the resources, or the pay to make that happen."

Marty stared silently, watching the scene unfold while staring at the gross on his feet. He quickly wiped it off with his socks and threw them away.

Mavis looked at both of them and grabbed each of their hands. "We took an oath, but so did everyone else, and they broke theirs."

Jeannine was fully sobbing now as the realization washed over her.

Mavis looked at Marty, "You can't play a game by the rules, when everyone else threw them away. There's no winning in that - for anyone, but especially you."

Mavis ushered them outside and ambled to her sedan in the mostly empty parking lot. Jeannine gave Marty a hug before grabbing his shoulders and saying between sobs, "Be careful, ok?"

Marty nodded solemnly, and with a smile they both knew was fake, he jabbed at her shoulder with a playful punch and said, "You too."

He made his way to the bench just outside the hospital doors as the sobs took over. Gasping. Knowing. There weren't enough doors to keep them from what was coming next.