"I’m here for the prescription. For David Thorne," Elias said. His voice sounded thin, even to his own ears.

The cold sterility of the pharmacy felt like a judgment. Elias stood at the counter, his fingers tracing the frayed edge of his sleeve, waiting for the pharmacist to look up from a stack of digital manifests. Can you buy morphine?

Elias sank into a plastic chair. He watched the clock on the wall, the second hand ticking with agonizing precision, realizing that while you can buy many things, mercy still required a signature.

"Mr. Thorne?" the pharmacist finally asked, peering over thin spectacles.

Elias looked at the rows of bottles behind the glass. Somewhere in those plastic cylinders was the end of his father's agony. It was right there, thirty feet away, yet locked behind a wall of codes and signatures.