Another Shift

Cassandra Wynn adjusted her scrub top in the mirror of the break room bathroom, then plastered on her softest, most sympathetic smile. The expression was practiced. Perfect. The kind of smile that made frail old women clasp her hand and whisper "You're such an angel, dear," with watery eyes.

Inside, she wanted to scream.

The clock on the wall said 6:36 PM. Another long night shift at Hillside Residential Care. She could hear the shuffle of walkers, the gentle hum of television static, and the incessant chatter of Barb and Tammy from the nurse's station. Cassandra's smile twitched as she exhaled and stepped back into the hall.

"Cass!" Tammy chirped, waving a clipboard. "Mr. Helgren had another accident. Room 14."

"Of course," Cassandra said warmly, taking the clipboard like it was a sacred relic.

She turned and walked off, heels whispering against linoleum, pulse pounding with loathing.

Mr. Helgren had another accident. Mr. Helgren always had another accident. He was ninety-four, barely alive, and Cassandra had to scrape his fluids off rubber mattress pads while dreaming of realms he'd never see.

She didn't belong here. Among the broken, the dull, the dying.

She belonged on a throne of onyx, her hair braided with serpents and smoke.

The ritual should have changed everything.

Last month, she'd gathered everything: powdered bones (harvested from the cremation urn in the activities lounge), iron filings (scraped from the brake pads of an old walker), and tears—those were easy. A few sob stories, a gentle squeeze of a hand, and her collection was full. She drew her sigils in sugar on a tile floor in the basement utility closet. She whispered the fourteen syllables of invocation beneath the buzz of fluorescent lights. She sliced her palm and bled willingly onto the stones.

And it had worked.

Or… started to.

The power rose, singing through her bones, her skin glowing with ancient promise—and then it vanished. Gone. Like a fuse had blown mid-surge. The candles snuffed. The sugar circle cracked. The stones went dull.

"Power flows to the marked vessel."

She had been sure that she had marked herself, that the power would flow to her like water rolling downhill. Cassandra had collapsed to her knees, dizzy and cold with rage. Who was the vessel? Who had intercepted her spell?

She needed to find them. Not just to reclaim her birthright—but to punish the theft.

She pushed into Room 14. Mr. Helgren was asleep, mouth slack. She set the clipboard down and cleaned efficiently. Mechanically. Her mind was elsewhere, spinning with layered possibilities.

Her stolen stones had recharged slightly—just enough to use minor divination. She'd used her lunch break the previous day to cast in the linen closet, concealed behind a half-emptied detergent tub. A delicate charm, etched on a pill bottle label in blood and saliva, had pointed toward something recent. A spike of metahuman resonance within ten miles.

That was promising.

But she needed more.

This time, she'd need to collect energy without suspicion. No stealing hair from brushes. No harvesting toenail clippings from laundry baskets. People had noticed. Security had even done a sweep after a resident complained her room felt "cursed."

Idiots.

Still, she couldn't risk losing this job. Not yet. She needed access to bodies. Pain. Fluids. Weak minds. She needed her stones fully charged and her ingredients exact. And if she was fired over some dumb complaint or missing denture adhesive, the delay could cost her everything.

No—this time, she'd be subtle.

Clean bandages soaked in old blood. Locks of hair swept with gloves into her pockets. Saliva, collected during sponge baths on the pretense of changing washcloths. A few drops of fear or confusion could be drawn with a whispered phrase into a cheap crystal on a chain.

Cassandra pulled the sheet over Mr. Helgren's still form and touched his forehead.

"Sleep easy," she whispered sweetly.

She left the room and walked slowly back down the hall.

Barb was laughing at something on her phone. Tammy was texting her boyfriend. No one saw Cassandra slide into the linen closet, where a small pouch was tucked behind a row of towel bundles. She pressed her palm to the felt bag. The stones inside pulsed weakly—alive, but starving.

She closed her eyes.

Soon, she would find the vessel. Whoever they were. However the spell had gone wrong. Her magic had moved—she'd felt the twist, the redirection—and somewhere out there, someone was walking around, unaware that they were filled with what should have been hers.

She opened her eyes, focused and furious.

Not for long.