You Can Never Leave
By Marie Myers
“They cut me open. I saw it! And then they just left. They just left!” She was still screaming as I was running down the hall at full speed, despite my leg, wasting no time to pull the IV out of my arm. Her trembling body and pale features were forever burned into my eyes.
“Someone!” I screamed. “Someone help me! HELP!” The echo of my feet slapping on the hard ground echoed down the hall behind me creating the illusion that I was being chased. My head kept lurching back around to look over my shoulder. I was scared shitless that she would follow me.
I could have sworn that there was something like the sound of insects crawling, hundreds maybe even thousands of them, as if they were moving through the inside of the hospital ceiling. Their little legs were crunching and rubbing together in unison. Exoskeletons covered in a thin layer of oil, scratching and scraping their way through dust, dead skin cells and grime stuck in the ceiling.
“Oh, God,” I whispered with my back to the wall once I was back in my hospital room. By then I knew something terrible had happened. I could feel it in my stomach. There were no nurses or doctors around. Jasmine wasn’t here. It was just me…alone…surrounded by…things that I couldn’t understand and I needed to get out of there. All I knew was that I needed to get out of there. And it wasn’t easy racking my brain for a thorough plan when my body was trembling from shock and fear.
“Oh God…please help me…Jasmine…please be OK.” My hands were in my hair gripping the thick strands tightly…wanting to tear them out. Had I gone insane? Was I still asleep…or in surgery? At this point, I could only hope.
“What’s happening to me?”