The Hospital--Vanessa

 At first, there is only darkness as I slowly begin to open my eyes to the dimly lit room I find myself in. I stare up at the ceiling rowed with dim fluorescent lights, some of them blinking, others completely shattered. There’s a rising pain in my head, a throbbing pain, almost like something is trying to burst from my skull with a terrible vengeance. I try to sit up with no avail as the pain I felt in my head seems to flow down the rest of my body, forcing me to lay back down. I try turning my neck to the side, seeing a set of machines you would typically find in a hospital, all of them seem to be shut off or broken. As my vision slowly begins to focus, I can see a door at the end of the room just past the machines. I turn the other way and see a window that looks like it had once been boarded up, but broken past from the inside out. What happened to me? Why am I here? My brian is a bit more focused now, and I decide the only way I’m gonna know anything is if I start moving. I make the effort but the pain is unbearable, every attempt I make to get up makes me shoot back down in agony. I don’t have a choice, I need to get up. I labor myself one more time and manage to slump over, I’m in pain but at least I moved. I look over and see my wrists are still attached to the bed, the leather straps holding them down look worn and ripped. I pull my arm, I hear a tearing sound. I start to pull with all I have, my muscles feel weak and the pain is worse than when I was simply trying to sit up. Eventually, the strap is ripped off from the bed, my fist nearly swinging into my face. I unbuckle the strap on my other arm and make an attempt to put my feet on the ground and walk. Every movement sends a wave of pain throughout my body and I feel like I haven't used my legs in days. There’s a small sink and mirror to the corner of the room where the window is. My throat feels dry. I try to move towards the sink, grabbing on to anything I can to help me move. The tiled floor is cold beneath my bare feet. I get to the sink and turn the nobbs but no water comes out, I look up in the mirror. It's cracked and foggy but I can see my reflection. My eyes are sunken in, my skin is pale, I have bruises and marks all across my body, I look sick and dead. I’m wearing a hospital gown, there are deep red spots across it. I turn and look out the window, the sky is gray and I can see tall buildings in the distance, smoke is rising from some of them. I look down at the sidewalk, there's broken glass and spots of red on the ground. I remember the door at the other side of the room, turning away from the grim window, I head for it, shuffling along. I see that there’s a long dark hallway ahead when I open the door, slowly creeping my way out. The hallway is just as disheveled and dimly lit as the room I came from. If I’m in a hospital, wouldn’t there be more people around? My voice comes out coarse and dry. “HeLlo?” I make my way down the cold hallway, passing empty disheveled rooms, not a single person in sight. Should I just look for the exit? But then where will I go? I’m passing from hallway to hallway, these questions buzzing through my head, when I think I see something move at the end of the corridor in front of me. “Hey!” “Hello?!” I rush down the hallway, Ignoring the pain in my legs as I try to muster something faster than a shuffle. The hallway comes to a turn and when I reach it, I find that the hall in front of me is darker than before and I can’t see the person anywhere. There’s a cold and ominous feeling in my stomach as I make my way down, darkness all around me. I feel like I can hear a crunching sound ahead. It gets louder and louder the further I go until I eventually see a blinking light down the way, something is on the ground moving, a rotten smell flowing down the hallway, it gets worse with every step as I get closer. I’m only a few feet away now, when I think I can see the outline of a person crouched on the ground, their back is arched out and their skin is a sickly pale color. I’m almost directly behind them now and the smell is unbearable, but as I look at this person, no...this thing, it’s limbs are long and thin and the skin is so pale I can see the dark veins under it. The crunching sound is ringing in my ears now with a horrifying sharpness. I angle my head to look just ahead of it. I couldn’t move, frozen in place. I wanted to scream, I wanted to run away, but I just couldn’t move. I wanted to turn around before this thing could see me but my legs wouldn’t let me run. It felt like an eternity that I had been standing there, looking at this thing, the sounds still ringing in my ears, until finally I couldn’t take it. I forced myself to turn around and run, run down the winding hallways that seemed to go on forever. I didn’t know where I was running to but I just wanted to get away, I had lost all focus on my pain. I kept running until I couldn’t run anymore and eventually I stumbled on the ground, my weak body forcing me to stop. The image of what I saw was burned into my mind, I wanted to cry but I felt like my dehydration left me with no tears to cry. Lying on the ground now, I could feel the pain that had previously been gone from my memory suddenly rise back up, my body aching, my mouth dry, and I’m starting to feel...hungry. I didn’t realize how hungry I felt until that moment, I had no idea how long I had spent in this hospital or without eating but I could suddenly feel the emptiness in my stomach. What time was it? How long have I spent here? How much time has passed? For all I knew it could be night outside but the hallways I had been spending what felt like an eternity in were void of any windows and the few that did exist were small or covered over. Only the few unbroken and blinking fluorescent lights that existed were the forms of light that I had really seen since being awake. I’m so hungry that it's all I can think about now, I want something to eat. I suddenly start to smell something in the cold air. It smells… sweet, like nothing I have ever smelled before. I pull myself off the ground and look for where the smell is coming from. Hospitals normally have food courts, don’t they? Maybe I managed to run my way out to the food court but how could any food last long in this disheveled hospital. I make my way to the corridor, letting the smell guide me to its source. I walk for what feels like hours and my hunger has grown so strong that I’m beginning to find it hard to see. By the time I’m close enough to the source that the smell takes over my nose entirely, my vision has blurred so much that I see nothing but shapes and colors until finally, I’m before the thing I have been looking for. I look down at this blurred object, the smell filling my head. I drop down, happy to finally have something to fill the void in my stomach. I reach out, tearing pieces off and bringing them to my salivating mouth with a terrible viciousness. Before long I can feel the void in my stomach becoming full as I feel a strange liquid flowing from my mouth and down my chin, the same stuff my hands are covered in. I stand up, the pain in my body seems to have disappeared entirely, my eyes have cleared, and I feel like all of my energy has returned. I looked down to see what delicious thing had filled my stomach. … What am I? What have I done? How long have I been in this hospital? I pull myself away. A sign sits just above the two doors that face me. Exit.