The stinging ache in her feet radiated up her calves as Natalie trudged home slowly, her jute sack of groceries slung over her shoulder and sweat dripping down her forehead in the stifling July air. The Midwest had been under a severe heat warning for the past 3 days, and the nights were just as unbearably humid and disgusting as the days. The weight of 11 hours of work at the hospital pressed down on her, suffusing her every step with weariness. The weight of the teenage girl who had died on her watch today pressed on her mind in a similar fashion.

Eight years. Eight years she had been a nurse, and the loss of a patient never ceased to take her breath away. Subjectively, she knew at this point that there were cases where there was nothing she could do. Nothing the doctors could do. Humans were fragile creatures, prone to illness and injury and their own folly. Sometimes it was a mercy to see them pass into a peaceful death. An elderly patient could slip away after a long illness, ensconced in the warm embrace of their family. The peace on a face so recently twisted in pain a ray of sunshine through the storm clouds of grief. A person could walk away knowing that their beloved family member was gone on to a better place, that the months of uncertainty were over, and they would be in pain no longer. Bittersweet relief.

Then there were the days like today. Days where a 15-year-old girl was wheeled into the ER after her asshole boyfriend had punched her in the stomach until she lost the baby she was carrying. Days where she watched a young life taken away in a wash of blood. Days where she stood helpless as drug addictions, and poverty, and senseless violence tore people out of this world and carried them into the next.

Natalie gave her head a forceful shake, trying to dislodge the painful images burned into the backs of her eyelids. Too many hours worked. Too little sleep. Too many tears shed. Too many overnight shifts and too many cups of shitty coffee to stave off the bone deep fatigue she could never seem to sleep off. She could feel her grasp on her own mind wearing dangerously thin and see every one of her 29 years in the dark under eye circles on her face.

Shoulder muscles wound harder than steel shifted under the rough straps of the bag as she shifted it, trying to ease the pinch and rub as she walked. She resented the empty fridge in her apartment for forcing this late night trip on her way home from work. Nothing sounded better right now than the cool sheets of her king sized bed. The urge to crawl beneath the covers and resurface for air sometime next month was almost too tempting to resist.

A lone car blew past her, the loud bass vibrating her and echoing between the buildings lining the deserted street. The artificial light of the street lamps left deep, harsh shadows on the pavement. Sharp edges of dark and light that grated across her frayed nerves. The heaviness of the humid summer air pressed around her, oppressive in its relentlessness.

Natalie had lived in Chicago nearly her entire life. The hurried pace of life in the city suited her often distracted brain. She had grown up in the outer suburbs before leaving to go to college in Boston. The change from subdivisions and strip malls to historic neighborhoods and a walkable lifestyle had proved too tempting to resist when she moved back home to put her nursing degree to good use. Her little studio apartment in the old Art deco building had a soul and character, and she adored it even though it cost three times what an apartment in the suburbs would.

As she reached the door to her building, she fumbled for her keys, digging for them deep in the pockets of her scrub pants as she tried to juggle her bags. A sudden movement caught in her peripheral vision. She turned her head, her hand tensing around her keys. All of a sudden, she felt a vise close over her mouth and nose and an iron bar clamp around her middle. It drug her back into the shadows just outside the pool of light create by the street lamp just beside the door.

Natalie struggled against the hands holding her back, tears springing to her eyes. Her feet scrambled for purchase to stop herself from being drug deeper into the shadows. The grip around her head and stomach only tightened, making it hard to catch her breath. She tried to jab her elbow back into her assailants side, but her arms were too securely pinned. Raising her foot, she brought down her heel on the person's shoe. She heard a satisfying crunch as her weight connected with the delicate bones on the top of their foot. A grunt of pain whooshed past her ear as they doubled over, bending her forwards with their sudden weight against her back. Natalie used the opportunity to whip her head backwards into theirs.

A burst of pain radiated across the back of her head as bone met bone, and another across her cheek as she was spun and a fist connected with her face. Stars exploded in her vision as the blood rushed to her head. Her arm met the concrete sidewalk with a sickening thud as her purse and groceries went flying, scattering across the sidewalk.

"Bitch!" A male voice came muffled from beneath a dark hoodie.

Pain exploded along her rib cage. She couldn't breathe. What had just happened? She felt herself curl into a ball as his foot connected with her side a second time. Another explosion of pain and a crunch of bone as her ribs gave way under his boot. Her voice came out as a gurgle as she tried to scream.

Natalie caught a glimpse of pale skin and dark stubble on his chin as he rolled her onto her back. The shifting her ribs against each other scraped her chest raw, stealing her breath and voice. All she could manage was a deep, wet groan.

The jingle of coins against the ground pulled her conscious enough to tell her that her assailant was going through her purse. Rage burbled up inside her in a tidal wave of red. How dare this asshole do this to her, all for her phone and a couple bucks? How DARE he?!

Fighting back the haze of black around the edges of her vision, Natalie mustered up all her anger and spit in his face as her was focused on her wallet in his hand.

"Fuck you, lowlife." Her words came out as a strained gasp as the pain in her ribs seared through her.

She heard a loud explosion and saw a flash of light before a spear of burning pain tore through her chest. The blackness narrowed her vision down into the smallest points of light. The frantic patter of retreating feet sounded miles away as her consciousness tunneled down deep into her brain. The world moved slowly as she felt the burble of liquid fill her lung and watched one of her newly bought apples roll slowly away, through the circle of light and into the shadows.

A rumble of thunder rattled her bones before a flash of green lightning tore across the sky, and then… silence.