You Can Never Leave
By Marie Myers
The vacant wall across from me looked like it was breathing. It pushed out, then in so slightly that one would have to be staring at it and nothing else with intense concentration. Yet I could see it perfectly. When I finally looked down at my leg I realized that they weren’t stitches after all, but staples that were practically ripped out. The skin protruded from where the doctors had sliced through my leg in between those tiny pieces of metal that glinted in the flickering lights that incessantly buzzed from above me. It looked like something out of Frankenstein and yet I didn’t even wince as I trace the protruding skin with my pointer finger. I heard the low moan of a door creaking open. Somewhere in the distance a woman’s haggard screams bounced off of the walls and toward me. Blood-curdling screams…but I was too exhausted to respond to any of it.
I was more than surprised but completely unresponsive as I saw that it was a nurse standing in front of me. A nurse with pale skin in a uniform that looked like it was from the 1940s. White see-through tights. A white skirt down to her knees. White two-inch heels. A little red cross printed on the hat that was pinned to her long black hair. Black eyes stared down at me. Black eyes as deep and dark as the hallway that extended infinitely in both directions. A cruel smile spread across her lips as she took a step to the side of the door she was holding open. She didn’t say anything, but I could hear a voice bouncing off of the walls of my head. Almost at once I came face to face with the certainty that she was not…human.
“This way, ma’am.” I heard a voice say. I followed her into the room feeling heavy. I blinked rapidly as my surroundings were suddenly flooded with a bright white light.
There I was, lying in bed, Jasmine was sitting beside me rummaging through her purse. The machines were beeping. I looked at the zigzag pattern of my heart for a moment before walking over to the foot of the bed. Strangely, in a detached state I watched as Jasmine took a needle from her purse. A needle that was already filled. Methodically she pulled the IV tube from the bag, carefully twisting it shut so it didn’t leak. She held the tube in the air for a moment, waiting for the liquid to go through before injecting whatever was in her needle then reattaching the tube the bag. In moments perhaps seconds my heartbeat ceased, until then she had stared at me with a small smile across her lips, she rose seemingly straightening out her dress before running through me, not seeing me, but screaming for help. I watched her run down the hallway, then the doctors who ran into the room, when I felt a cold hand on my shoulder.