Amina's shoes stuck slightly to the floor with each step.
The cleaners had done what they could, but blood and disinfectant made a thin, tacky film on the tiles of the emergency ward. The smell of chlorine clung to her nostrils, fighting with the metallic tang underneath.
It was late. The heat had backed off a little, replaced by the heavy stillness that came after too many hours of raised voices and running feet.
In the last bed, a boy of about seventeen slept fitfully, lips moving around words only he could hear. His bandaged shoulder rose and fell. Amina checked his drip, adjusted the rate, and scribbled a note on his chart.
"How many today?" asked a voice behind her.
She turned. It was Nurse Salif, glasses sliding down his nose, a clipboard tucked under one arm.
"Wounded or dead?" she said.
"Both."
She exhaled slowly. "Four dead arrived. Two more died here. Twelve wounded still in the ward. Five discharged with minor injuries. Three sent to the bigger hospital in the regional capital, if the road doesn't kill them."
Salif nodded, pen scratching against paper.
"And names?" he asked.
Amina tapped her pen against the chart, thinking of the young man who had come from the radio station in the afternoon with a crumpled list in his hand and hope in his eyes.
"Some we know," she said. "Some are 'unknown male, approximately twenty.' We wrote descriptions. The morgue is full. The fridge broke again, so they are using the cold room behind the kitchen."
Salif grimaced. "The ministry likes numbers more than names anyway."
"Families like names," Amina said.
She walked to the small desk by the window where the ward register lay open. The ceiling light flickered, so she pushed the ledger closer to the bar of cooler air seeping through the grille.
In neat, tired handwriting, she added lines:
"08:47 – Male, approx. 19, gunshot wound chest – DOA – no ID.
09:13 – Male, 22, gunshot wound leg – stable – name: Ibrahim K., Cazanda.
10:02 – Male, 16, head trauma – DOA – name from brother: Abdou R., Kouta.
11:27 – Male, 24, abdominal wound – died 12:05 – name: Moussa T., Kpani."
She paused over each name before moving on, as if a heartbeat could be lent through the pen.
Behind her, voices buzzed at the far end of the ward. A cluster of relatives argued quietly with a junior doctor about visiting hours.
"We have a right," one woman said. "They may be gone before morning."
Salif went to handle it. Amina finished the last entries, closed the register, and slid it into the drawer.
She picked up another notebook from the shelf. Not official, no ministry stamp on the cover. This one was hers, started months ago when the first "disturbances" had sent boys into the ward with bullet holes instead of motorcycle crashes or farming injuries.
On the first page, she had written: "Those who arrived after protests, raids, clashes." Underneath, a list of names, dates, brief notes. Some lines had flowers pressed between the pages, left by relatives who had nothing else to give.
She turned to a fresh page and copied the names from the day's register. Then, next to each, she added what little extra she knew.
"Ibrahim K., 22 – said he wanted to be a mechanic. Asked if his mother was here."
"Abdou R., 16 – younger brother refused to accept he was dead."
"Moussa T., 24 – mining company ID card in pocket. Mother works in hospital laundry."
A shadow fell across the page.
"You make your own records now?" asked Dr. Kamau.
Amina closed the notebook halfway, fingers still inside.
"Just notes," she said. "For later."
"For who?"
She looked up at him. He was leaning against the doorframe, tie loosened, white coat grayer than it had been that morning.
"For whoever comes after and asks what happened," she said. "The ministry doesn't ask about protests. The newspapers in the capital write about 'bandits neutralized.' Someone has to remember that they had names."
Kamau rubbed his forehead.
"You want to be careful," he said. "In times like these, a notebook becomes a weapon in the wrong eyes."
"Then in the right eyes, it is evidence," she replied.
He studied her for a moment, then gave a small shrug.
"Hide it somewhere better than that drawer. At least," he said.
She opened the drawer he'd glanced at. Inside: only the official register and a box of bandages.
"I'm not stupid," she said.
He almost smiled. "No. You're tired."
A gust of warm air pushed in from the corridor as someone opened the outer door. A faint smell of petrol and smoke slipped in with it.
"Trouble on the road again," Kamau said. "They're saying the army has set up an extra checkpoint. They're stopping ambulances, checking IDs."
Amina clenched her jaw. "Since when is it a crime to bleed?"
"Since they decided everyone out there is a suspect until proven otherwise," he said. "We have two patients we need to transfer to the regional hospital. Kidney failure and a complicated fracture. If they die because a soldier wants to argue about paperwork, I will…"
He let the sentence die.
"We should send them early," Amina said. "Before the road fills."
Kamau nodded. "At first light. You go home now. Sleep. If you fall over during a transfusion tomorrow, that will not help anyone."
She looked down at her notebook.
"I'll hide this and then go," she said.
He walked away, his footsteps fading.
Amina stepped into the tiny medication room. Shelves lined with boxes, some full, some empty, labels peeling. In the corner, a stack of old IV stands. The overhead bulb had burned out last week; only a sliver of light from the hallway reached inside.
She knelt near the back wall, where the plaster had cracked and flaked away. Behind the lowest shelf was a gap in the brick, barely wider than her hand. A leftover from some long‑ago repair.
She wrapped the notebook in a piece of plastic, slid it into the gap, and pushed an empty cardboard box in front of it.
In the corridor, she met one of the hospital guards, old Musa, his uniform faded, shotgun slung casually over his shoulder.
"You look like you've swallowed the sun," he said.
"I need a bed and a fan," she said. "Do you ever sleep?"
He shrugged. "These days, the night is when the news travels. Men who were brave in the day become afraid of their own shadows. That is when they come to me and ask if the hospital is 'safe'."
"Is it?" she asked.
He weighed the shotgun in his hands.
"As safe as a house made of leaves in a storm," he said. "But better than the open field."
Outside, the sky was a deep, dusty blue. The town hummed at a lower pitch: radios murmuring through open windows, pots clanging in courtyards, a baby crying somewhere down the street.
Amina walked the short distance to the nurses' hostel. The power was out again. The corridor was lit by a single candle stuck on a plate.
In her small room, she lay on the thin mattress without undressing. The ceiling fan was still, a dark shape against the shadowed roof.
She closed her eyes. Instead of sleep, images from the day replayed behind her lids. The boy insisting his brother was only tired. The soldier's face when she told him his comrade was gone. The list of names, each one a small anchor in the flood.
Her phone buzzed once on the table. The signal bar flickered to life, a single, tentative line.
A message from an unknown number:
"This is Daniel from Radio Kouta. I got your number from the hospital porter. We need to talk about what really happened today. Off air, if you prefer. People are already lying."
She stared at the screen.
Her first thought was caution. The director's warning at the station, the soldiers' suspicion of "rumor spreaders," the ministry's long arm.
Her second thought was of her notebook in the wall.
She typed slowly.
"We talk. But no names on air without families' consent. And you don't put my name on anything."
His reply came quickly.
"Agreed. Tomorrow, late morning? I'll come by the hospital gate."
She put the phone down.
In the quiet, the distant crack of gunfire rolled once, then again, far off toward the highway. The sound was muffled by distance but unmistakeable.
Amina listened until silence returned.
Then, finally, exhaustion pulled her to sleep.