The first thing I heard was a beeping sound of the ECG monitor. It was so intense that I couldn't determine my heart rate by listening to it. Then the worst came. The sound changed and by the sound of it I could conclude that the line was flat. “I want to live!”, the thought crossed my mind, and then I tried to jump of the bed I was laying on but I failed.
The machine started beeping again. I tried to move my hands so I could feel my own body. I knew I have moved them onto my stomach but I didn't feel any sensation in them. I was thinking how did I end up here but all my attempts were futile. Since my hands were useless I tried to open my eyes. I failed again. Bandages around my head made me blind.
Just as I have started to lose hope my sense of touch slowly came back. The smell of disease was in the air. I wanted to vomit so badly but I think I haven’t eaten anything for ages. Like a mole tunneling through soil I was trying to touch everything in order to find out what happened.
Then I heard a scream. Obviously somebody was terrified, but what was it that made him scream? I was asking so many questions that I can’t remember any now. Then I decided to touch my head and take my blindfold off. I saw ceiling which was damaged by moisture. Even though I was in this ugly place I felt a relief because all of my senses came back. I wanted to explore but I didn't know the condition of my body. My weak hands could barely hold my body in sitting position while I was trying to stand up. Apparently I was in a room with another 20-30 patients. Everyone seemed to be asleep just as I was. Then one man started shaking. His ECG monitor went crazy. His heart rate was around 200 bpm when it stopped.
I tried to stand up and help him. As I stood up I felt pressure in my legs as never before. My body was so heavy that I could barely walk. Also, my legs seem to have lost all their strength. I came to the man who was still breathing. I tried to reanimate him while screaming for help. The man was dying but nobody came. More than five minutes passed as I was pushing his chest in order to save his life. He was dead and I couldn't do anything to save him now.
Then I felt a rush of sad and disturbing feelings knowing that I could end up like him. I have decided to leave this place. Some thoughts were troubling me but I wasn't sure what exactly was I thinking of. The door was at the end of a long room filled with beds. It was half open so anybody could easily get in or out.
When I got out of the room I saw a long hallway. The hallway was full of dust and spider nets. It’s like nobody was here for years. The smell of fungus was getting stronger as I was walking towards its end. Now I was in the lobby. There was a round counter with two chairs behind it. One desk lamp was turned on but the light bulb was flickering. This place looked like it was abandoned for some reason.
I saw a sign on the wall. Now I knew I was on 12th floor. There were stairs leading down. I thought about leaving this place so I could search for help, so I started climbing down. While I was passing down the stairs I've heard a few screams. I got to the 9th floor there were no stairs to climb down. There was only one hallway with a great door. There was a writing on top of the door saying “The blind”. As I was entering I saw lots of people. Some were sleeping, but many of them were awake. “Whoever are you, you should run from this place while you can!”, one of them shouted, “You shouldn't have come here!”
“I am leaving this, I have just came from the 12th floor”, I replied.
The man was terrified. His wrinkled skin was giving out his old age while he was approaching me. “Don't go down there! You will see terrifying things. It’s very dangerous!”, he tried to stop me while grabbing my hand. “Don't touch me! I know where I’m going”, I pushed him off me and continued to the next door. “You don't, you don’t know what you are doing!”, the old man was yelling at me.
I thought I was heading towards the exit when I saw the stairs again. While I was climbing these stairs I felt very intense discomfort. They were long and steep. After climbing down I saw a woman sitting on the hospital bed. She was in a white dress which was covered in blood. “Hey there!”, she said while standing up. She was very tall and beautiful. Her dark hair was so long it almost covered all the blood on the dress. The look of her deep hazel eyes was giving me some sort of adrenaline rush. She confidently walked over me and then whispered, “Wouldn't you like to have some fun?”
The woman didn't wait for my answer, instead she grabbed my hand and started walking towards the bed. As we got to the bed she started kissing me. In the next moment I found myself laying on her. Her sharp nails were scratching my back while she was kissing my neck. I opened my eyes and I saw something horrifying again. In the trash bin I saw remains of a baby. This woman obviously had an abortion some time ago. The abortion itself is not a problem, but the fact that the child was could be born in less than two months made me push her off me. “Get away from me!”, I yelled at her while running away in terror. All my senses were numb, the only thing I remember is running down the stairs and passing through another door. This time the room was significantly hotter.
I could hear the sound of somebody ranting about his hunger. I couldn't find out where the sound was coming from because there were a lot of doors in the hallway. As I stepped forward, a man started running towards me. He was short and very fat, I didn't believe that somebody with that much weight could run, and I think he didn't have good intentions. I started running away while I could. “Get over here, I’m gonna eat you alive!”, the man was yelling. As I was trying to escape through endless hallways and numerous staircases I found myself on the 12th again.
The old man was right, I shouldn't have been down there. Who knows what could happen to me if I went on to the lower floors. As my exit was blocked I decided to go upwards and search for help. While I was climbing to the 13th and 14th floor I saw only unconscious people in beds. Nobody could help me here so I went up again and on my surprise I heard a bell while I was walking through another corridor. It was an elevator! It was working. I couldn't believe my eyes. As I was carefully entering the elevator I saw all the buttons. The hospital had exactly 30 floors. I pushed the 30th floor button because I was tired of climbing. Even if I found nobody there, I could easily climb down again. And then another sound of a bell. The door started to open and the white light entered the elevator. It took me a few seconds to get used to the light intensity.
The whole room was white and clean. It's like I was in another building. I was walking down the hallway when I heard another ECG monitor. When I took a peek inside the room I had something to see. There was a doctor performing a surgery. This hospital actually had a staff. “Oh there you are, wait just a second while I finish”, he said. I was wondering why he was operating alone. When he finished he took the gloves off his hands and then came to me. “Where am I, how did I end up here?”, I asked him. While he was preparing to speak to me, I saw that his face was changing slightly. He started looking like me. “I don't know how you got here because all of you have similar stories, I know that you are given to me to take care of you”, he replied.
“How do you mean you? Isn't there anybody else in the hospital?”, I was wondering.
“There were others, but the people didn't want them. They only wanted one of us to take care of them. You know, common folks are very weird sort. They don’t know what they want, but they make demands from me. Now tell me, what do you want?”, the doctor asked me while changing his appearance again. “I just want to get out of here and return to my everyday life.”, I replied
“Don’t you know that your everyday life became your bed? You have been sleeping for twenty years. Why don't you stay with me instead? Everybody else wants that in the end.”, he was persistent in his decision that I stay. “I cannot, I have to get back to my real life”, I tried to make him understand me.
He looked at me and said: “Real life? Do you even know what is life? How do you know it wasn't just an illusion? You know, you can do anything you wish, but be careful about your wishes. Eventually everybody ends up here, but only a few get to the place you are standing on now.”
“No, this can’t be… I have never… What is happening?”, I was thinking when something pulled me from there. It was dark again. I tried to open my eyes and I saw the ceiling of my bedroom. What a relief, knowing that it was all a dream made me happy that I’m still alive and healthy. Or was it all just a dream?
Inspired by Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy”
All the pictures were taken from Pixabay
This is my original work, copyright restricted.