The first person to say she heard voices was not the first person Tessa sent for further assessment.
A volunteer beside the intake table had gone pale halfway through giving his name. He insisted he only needed water, then tried to stand and folded against the wall. The care worker caught his shoulder while Tessa checked his breathing and called for a clear space on the nearest bed.
At the doorway, a woman waited with both hands over her ears.
“You have to make them stop,” she said.
Tessa could not leave the collapsing man immediately. She sent another worker to the woman, asked whether she felt at risk of hurting herself or anyone else, and gave her a quieter place within sight of staff. Then she returned to the body beneath her hands.
The temporary clinic occupied rooms a school had lent after the receiving lane overflowed. Desks stood against the walls. A child’s drawing remained taped above the bed where the volunteer now lay, its paper curled by damp. The clinic had people physically rescued from facilities, residents injured during evacuation, anchor contributors whose limits had been reached or exceeded before anyone could stop them, and families who had come because a released soul’s uncertain fate had made home impossible to sit in.
