She was filled with trepidation and she gripped her companion’s hand more tightly.

As they made their way to the reception, NK was filled with a terrifying spirit. She hated this place and its shiny white walls, freshly scrubbed floors and a lingering odour of antiseptic and medicines, the smell that followed you everywhere after you left this place.

Spotting the information desk, she hurriedly dropped the hand she had been clutching and ran towards it. In a breathless rush, she reeled out her enquiries and she was answered stoically by the lady in white and told to sit down.

She lowered herself into a chair and clasped her hands in her lap, waiting and hoping. In some few minutes, a harried, bespectacled man stepped out. Their eyes met at the same time and she got up to meet him just as he moved towards her.

“Madam, I just got out of surgery, we are doing everything we can to save him.”