The hallways are never dim, here.
She shines too fierce for that, bathing them in colorful light that shimmers like a mirage.
Maybe it is a mirage.
It should be blinding, should drive them mad, but it doesn’t.
She smiles at a little boy as she walks by. “Hello, Will. Did you sleep well?”
Will beams his crooked grin at her, painted in vibrant hues.
Will is but one of dozens of pained grins, photosynthesizing from her. It’s not fun being in the hospital, and it shouldn’t be. She makes it tolerable though, makes time seem real and hope sustainable.
Then the virus comes.
It seems distant at first, a shadow that’s unreal and far off, and she supposes that her light, their light (because for every ray she gives off, their kindness refracts a dozen more) is untouchable.
She’s not alone in that assumption.
Soon the illness rampages across her hospital, affecting the young and the old and everyone in between. She smiles wider, gives off more light, and hopes, hopes, that it will make a difference.
That her light, their light, while not untouchable, is enduring.
For a while, it works. Her neighbors come together in respect and admiration and light over the gloom, and it is terribly beautiful.
Later, in her final moments, she will pause to wonder what caused the change,
Was it the virus, the darkness that swept over everyone at last? Was it hopelessness, like the ache she felt in her bones during her last days? Was it a broken heart, like the reason her light had started to fade, as all her Wills passed on?
Well, whatever it was that caused her neighbors to abandon her and recklessly take the lives of more Wills and fill the hospital with so much murk that had feeded on itself and make it collapse like a dying star-
Well. She’ll never know.
She, herself, had drowned like a dying star, without her Wills and her light to guide her way.
No one is bathed in shimmering light, anymore, not even Will.
Everyone is driven mad without it.
Turns out it was a mirage.
The hallways are always dim, now.