The Hospital
Gabriel Vega
With a gasp of breath, I am awake. I am alive. Ice cold metal welcomes my body. It’s a frightening cold, chilled right to the bone. Where am I?
It hurts as I come to realized I’m lying on some sort of table. My muscles are stiff in the chill of the air. I try to move, no use. I can’t seem to open my eyes either. My eyes are heavy, fluttering erratically trying to grasp the lack of light around me. Red and darkness dance into my pupils. I am fighting to see what I am looking at, trying hard to focus on the chaos my eyes are trying to decipher.
One finger moves along with a toe. I feel paralyzed, in that dream like state of panic, hoping someone will wake me up and end this lack of control. My teeth chatter trying to become mobile, wiggling and slithering on this table. Time passes. Minutes, hours, I can’t tell. The smell of smoke catches my attention as this torture continues. It’s an odd comfort in such a helpless time.
My vision sets in. I don’t know if I am ready for whatever it is I need to face. The scenery hits me like a sudden epiphany. I see a ceiling. It’s the sickly color of green. It’s like a baby let its mushy chunks fall into white paint. The ceiling is also deformed with the stains of rust and God knows whatever it is causing it to. Time has such a peculiar way of decaying things. Funguses of all colors paint a putrid picture before my eyes.
My sense of smell slowly develops. I wish it hadn’t. It smells of rotted meat, something that has been festering for far too long. If I listen closely, I can hear the crawling, the movements of what is seems like maggots, critters scurrying all about. It’s a sick song of gnawing, slithering, and crunching. I can hear it all now as I become more aware of my surroundings. Where am I? As I ask this question as the smell of alcohol suddenly frolics around me. The smell makes my stomach flip and my nose burn.
I sit up now, sore all over, lungs fighting to take in all the air and death around me. There are countless beds scattered around. I am the only one lucky enough to wake on a table ready for dissection. Each and every bed, piss stained along with shit delicately encrusting every mattress. Some are shredded with what it looks like slices from a blade, others moist with blood.
Looking around I see this room in whole. The sickly vomit green, rust, and crimson surrounding everything. There is a checkered floor masked with dirt, bugs, and oh my God - pieces of people. It’s everywhere! Stacks of flesh, caked with blood. Parts of hands, feet, legs are hiding everywhere with the same maggots and crawlers my ears were so keen to. Rats with matted fir and blood red eyes scurry with fingers. The crunching seems so loud. The festering and the eating sing of rot and death. Continuing to try and understand where I am only adds to my discomfort.
Touching the floor my toes cringe in revolt to the gunk I am faced with. Chunks of whole toe nails greet me. My stomach pushes to throw up but all I do dry heave for a good five minutes. I take a minute to find some composure and stop shaking so much. It is time to leave. It is time to find answers.
Leaving the room I come into a hallway. Dim fluorescent lights show me what it looks to be in a hospital. Empty and dark, perfection compared to the room I awoke in. There are no stains. There are no maggots or blood. It’s a sinister nothingness to this hallway of more beds, clean, though still not inviting. I walk for what it seems like twenty minutes. I pass rooms that are encased in pure darkness; the sounds of cackling fused with moans, even the heavy breathing of something slowly dying escape these halls. As I pass every room I feel each and every sound and every piece of darkness following me, right on my neck sending. It sends the chills right through me. Something is here. Something I don’t want to see is here, watching.
The wet touch of someone or something forces me to turn around and see what has been following me. Nothing. Not a thing behind me. Now I don’t want to turn back to where I was walking. I can feel it for sure now, something is behind me. The sound of dripping and shallow breathing forces my stiff body to slowly, ever so slowly holding my breath, turn around.
It is a doctor. He has foggy white eyes with a hint of blue, dead and lifeless. With a smile I can see the details of his puss encrusted lips, bloody. The man is convulsing slightly. He is moving at a fast pace but in one spot. It doesn’t make sense. It’s like he is caught between another dimension, two worlds, and one monster. He won’t stop the fucking shaking and twisting and moving in and out of focus. Slices and flesh protrude through his white coat. The bones welcome his skin. He is like a skeleton.
I can’t move again. I don’t know what to do as he takes a blade from behind him. This thing is huge, a bone saw encrusted with the remains of someone’s life on it. In a split second he is in front of me. Laughing like a mad man. Pressing the saw to his lips and cutting. Cutting and cutting and cutting! He shakes into multiple figures, death in his eyes cackling before he is gone. There is nothing there and I am paralyzed with fear. I am alone with the smell of decay lingering.
I have to keep moving I tell my legs. They wobble under me, weak from all that I don’t understand, all I don’t want to understand at this point. At the end of the hallway I can now see a room lit by some sort of fire. Walking in the question of where this might be beckons to be answered. It’s an endless room it seems. Hundreds of corpses are perfectly lined up covered in white blankets stained by their afflictions. Some have blood, other black gunk I care not to know of. Some are soaked with orange and black fluids.
Something catches my eye. It is a bed with a body on it, no stains. The smell of smoke hits me again. I remember it. Where is it from? I recognize the shape of the body. It’s a sudden realization that makes me think of Michael, my family. God please, please, let it not be one of them. Walking closer I see papers attached the bed on a clipboard with some sort of writing.
Oh my God.
Gabriel Vega. Born April 10th died December 5th. The cause of death was a fire in my home. Lifting the sheets reveal my face with the pure look of terror. Every part of me is burned and rotted. I am in a twisted state of pain and agony on this metal table. I died in a fire. I burned to death alone. I remember now. All the bodies begin to laugh under the sheets. Every single sheet is bouncing with laughter growing louder and louder. I can’t deal. I want it to stop. It needs to stop.
My eyes begin to burn. My lungs take in nothing but smoke. I am trying to scream as my skin burns and my body shrivels. I cough up ash, nothing but ash and blood. I realize where this is now. The same doctor appears, just as gruesome as before, those pale lifeless eyes piercing into my burning corpse.
“Welcome.”
I am nothing but burnt flesh now, drowning in silent screams on the floor. The realization hits. I know where I lay - Hell.
With a gasp of breath, I am awake. I am alive. Ice cold metal welcomes my body. It’s a frightening cold, chilled right to the bone. Where am I?
It hurts as I come to realized I’m lying on some sort of table. My muscles are stiff in the chill of the air. I try to move, no use. I can’t seem to open my eyes either. My eyes are heavy, fluttering erratically trying to grasp the lack of light around me. Red and darkness dance into my pupils. I am fighting to see what I am looking at, trying hard to focus on the chaos my eyes are trying to decipher.
One finger moves along with a toe. I feel paralyzed, in that dream like state of panic, hoping someone will wake me up and end this lack of control. My teeth chatter trying to become mobile, wiggling and slithering on this table. Time passes. Minutes, hours, I can’t tell. The smell of smoke catches my attention as this torture continues. It’s an odd comfort in such a helpless time.
My vision sets in. I don’t know if I am ready for whatever it is I need to face. The scenery hits me like a sudden epiphany. I see a ceiling. It’s the sickly color of green. It’s like a baby let its mushy chunks fall into white paint. The ceiling is also deformed with the stains of rust and God knows whatever it is causing it to. Time has such a peculiar way of decaying things. Funguses of all colors paint a putrid picture before my eyes.
My sense of smell slowly develops. I wish it hadn’t. It smells of rotted meat, something that has been festering for far too long. If I listen closely, I can hear the crawling, the movements of what is seems like maggots, critters scurrying all about. It’s a sick song of gnawing, slithering, and crunching. I can hear it all now as I become more aware of my surroundings. Where am I? As I ask this question as the smell of alcohol suddenly frolics around me. The smell makes my stomach flip and my nose burn.
I sit up now, sore all over, lungs fighting to take in all the air and death around me. There are countless beds scattered around. I am the only one lucky enough to wake on a table ready for dissection. Each and every bed, piss stained along with shit delicately encrusting every mattress. Some are shredded with what it looks like slices from a blade, others moist with blood.
Looking around I see this room in whole. The sickly vomit green, rust, and crimson surrounding everything. There is a checkered floor masked with dirt, bugs, and oh my God - pieces of people. It’s everywhere! Stacks of flesh, caked with blood. Parts of hands, feet, legs are hiding everywhere with the same maggots and crawlers my ears were so keen to. Rats with matted fir and blood red eyes scurry with fingers. The crunching seems so loud. The festering and the eating sing of rot and death. Continuing to try and understand where I am only adds to my discomfort.
Touching the floor my toes cringe in revolt to the gunk I am faced with. Chunks of whole toe nails greet me. My stomach pushes to throw up but all I do dry heave for a good five minutes. I take a minute to find some composure and stop shaking so much. It is time to leave. It is time to find answers.
Leaving the room I come into a hallway. Dim fluorescent lights show me what it looks to be in a hospital. Empty and dark, perfection compared to the room I awoke in. There are no stains. There are no maggots or blood. It’s a sinister nothingness to this hallway of more beds, clean, though still not inviting. I walk for what it seems like twenty minutes. I pass rooms that are encased in pure darkness; the sounds of cackling fused with moans, even the heavy breathing of something slowly dying escape these halls. As I pass every room I feel each and every sound and every piece of darkness following me, right on my neck sending. It sends the chills right through me. Something is here. Something I don’t want to see is here, watching.
The wet touch of someone or something forces me to turn around and see what has been following me. Nothing. Not a thing behind me. Now I don’t want to turn back to where I was walking. I can feel it for sure now, something is behind me. The sound of dripping and shallow breathing forces my stiff body to slowly, ever so slowly holding my breath, turn around.
It is a doctor. He has foggy white eyes with a hint of blue, dead and lifeless. With a smile I can see the details of his puss encrusted lips, bloody. The man is convulsing slightly. He is moving at a fast pace but in one spot. It doesn’t make sense. It’s like he is caught between another dimension, two worlds, and one monster. He won’t stop the fucking shaking and twisting and moving in and out of focus. Slices and flesh protrude through his white coat. The bones welcome his skin. He is like a skeleton.
I can’t move again. I don’t know what to do as he takes a blade from behind him. This thing is huge, a bone saw encrusted with the remains of someone’s life on it. In a split second he is in front of me. Laughing like a mad man. Pressing the saw to his lips and cutting. Cutting and cutting and cutting! He shakes into multiple figures, death in his eyes cackling before he is gone. There is nothing there and I am paralyzed with fear. I am alone with the smell of decay lingering.
I have to keep moving I tell my legs. They wobble under me, weak from all that I don’t understand, all I don’t want to understand at this point. At the end of the hallway I can now see a room lit by some sort of fire. Walking in the question of where this might be beckons to be answered. It’s an endless room it seems. Hundreds of corpses are perfectly lined up covered in white blankets stained by their afflictions. Some have blood, other black gunk I care not to know of. Some are soaked with orange and black fluids.
Something catches my eye. It is a bed with a body on it, no stains. The smell of smoke hits me again. I remember it. Where is it from? I recognize the shape of the body. It’s a sudden realization that makes me think of Michael, my family. God please, please, let it not be one of them. Walking closer I see papers attached the bed on a clipboard with some sort of writing.
Oh my God.
Gabriel Vega. Born April 10th died December 5th. The cause of death was a fire in my home. Lifting the sheets reveal my face with the pure look of terror. Every part of me is burned and rotted. I am in a twisted state of pain and agony on this metal table. I died in a fire. I burned to death alone. I remember now. All the bodies begin to laugh under the sheets. Every single sheet is bouncing with laughter growing louder and louder. I can’t deal. I want it to stop. It needs to stop.
My eyes begin to burn. My lungs take in nothing but smoke. I am trying to scream as my skin burns and my body shrivels. I cough up ash, nothing but ash and blood. I realize where this is now. The same doctor appears, just as gruesome as before, those pale lifeless eyes piercing into my burning corpse.
“Welcome.”
I am nothing but burnt flesh now, drowning in silent screams on the floor. The realization hits. I know where I lay - Hell.
With a gasp of breath, I am awake. I am alive. Ice cold metal welcomes my body. It’s a frightening cold, chilled right to the bone. Where am I?