You Can Never Leave
By Marie Myers
There was a sound coming from somewhere in the room. A low, muffled sound, that seemed to bounce off of the walls and into my head. But I couldn’t make it out. I couldn’t open my eyes or even move for that matter. Disorientation was normal after the procedure…is what they had told me…but this was different. I felt fear. Pure terror seemed to course through my body…for only a moment. I tried to pinpoint that sound—was it someone talking, or humming? I tried to hang onto it for as long as I could, but I could feel my consciousness slipping.
Sleep…my brain seemed to tell me…and…I gave in. Only to recognize a sound much like a sniffle. Jasmine…was my last thought before oblivion settled in.
The next time I woke up it was completely dark. For a moment I had forgotten where I was, but then I spotted the faint glow of the machines I was hooked up to and the flickering of lights in the hallway. Oddly enough, my leg wasn’t hurting. All the same I felt for the remote blindly in the darkness, the one with the button on it to call the nurse, and found it was glowing from beneath my pillow. Had I been moving around in my sleep?
After pressing the thing three times I became impatient.
“Hello? Nurse?” My voice seemed to bounce off the walls of the small square room I lay in. I watched as someone walked past my room slowly, down the hallway their hulking silhouette was as black as the corners of my room, their footsteps scraped down the linoleum floor of the hallway until they were out of sight.
“N-n-nurse?” I called after them. Again there was no answer except the returning echo of my own trembling voice.
I pulled myself up, shaking my head with irritation, what the hell was wrong with these people? They were supposed to be taking care of me.
My legs felt like Jell-O as I gingerly placed my bare feet on the icy ground. I held onto the IV with a strong grip, pulling it alongside me as I ventured out into the hall ignoring the incessant beeeeeeeeeep of the heart-monitoring machine from which I had detached myself. I looked to the right and left and saw no one as I pulled my robe tighter around the revealing hospital gown. Just two long, dimly lit corridors without another soul in sight, I shivered and cursed under my breath. It was unreasonably dark and cold.
The lights buzzed in response. From a room across the hall I could hear what sounded like a man’s hoarse breathing. It was a harsh, phlegm-filled wheezing that tugged at my ears even as I continued down the hallway away from the room goose bumps covered every inch of my skin and my breath was like ice in the air.
“Anyone?” I shouted, my voice echoed down the hallway and returned to my ears without a response.
“Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone…?”