00:00
A faraway lullaby, soothing yet foreboding.
A distant bell tinkles.
It is cold. Your cheek is resting against a hard, uncomfortable surface. For a moment, your brain turns this way and that, attempting to get you your proper orientation. It takes a while before you realize that you are lying down, presumably on a floor. Your awareness of your limbs begins to return, piece by piece. Hands outstretched. Legs splayed.
They are all still there, you think groggily.
Probably. Together with it comes the awareness of a headache plaguing the inside of your skull; a throbbing, pulsating and dull pain that seems to emanate outwards from the deepest core of your mind.
Your brows furrow at the unpleasant sensation. Your eyelids shift. You blink twice. The headache subsides, slowly receding within your head. Then, you open your eyes fully.
All you see before you is a fuzzy mess of shapes. You squint instinctively. The image resolves slightly into a still fuzzy – but comprehensible – picture. Yes, you wear glasses, don’t you? Still laid out on the ground, you reach out, waving your hand around the floor until your fingers find the thin metal frames that you thought you saw. Just by placing them on, your vision transforms dramatically. Everything comes into sharp focus. These appear to fit you perfectly… so they must be yours. With the spectacles you manage to see just exactly where you are.
Squeaky clean white tiles on the floor. Crisply made beds covered with sheets of light green and blue, separated with privacy curtains. Cartoonish, cute signs reminding you to wash your hands frequently. A small flatscreen TV mounted on the far wall, its screen dark. A clock hanging above it – the short hand is pointing at one while the long hand is pointing at twelve. Fluorescent lights are set into the ceiling, bathing the room in a harsh, white light.
Then there is the ever-present smell of disinfectant, sharp and sterile.
You appear to be in a hospital.
No matter how clean the tiles look from your vantage point on the floor, it is probably a good idea to get up from it just a little bit quicker. There is only one door to the ward, and one large window set into the wall right opposite it. It is probably there so that the patients are granted the luxury of enjoying the outside view even if they are too unwell to venture out, but the only source of light right now is coming from the lights in the ceiling. It seems to be night outside. Pressing your nose against the cool glass, you can make out the glow of the street lamps nearby and the lights of the city in the distance. There does not seem to be any traffic about, but that is not surprising at this hour.
You take hold of the handle on the window, turn it, and push.
Nothing happens.
It does not move. You wonder if the window is stuck.
It does not budge even a fraction no matter how much force you apply, pushing and pulling. You might as well be exerting yourself against a brick wall, for all the good you do. You tap the glass pane – the sound weirdly flat in the utter silence of the room – and turn away, slightly frustrated at your wasted effort. Looking around, your eyes are drawn to the clock again. It has not moved since you last saw it… from the lack of a ticking noise, it might not be moving at all.
A sudden thought strikes you. Patting yourself down, you feel the unmistakable thin slab of a cellphone in your pocket, one that had gone unnoticed in the confusion of your awakening. You pull it out quickly and power the phone up. The display lights up and a password screen appears, big white numbers declaring that the time is currently 01:00 am. Easy, you should know the password to your phone by heart… if it is yours.
It’s…
Your thumb hovers hesitantly over the touch display.
Strangely enough, you can’t seem to remember the numbers at the moment.
The wallpaper, too, does not seem familiar to you, now that you think about it… but you also do not recall the wallpaper that you had. In fact… did you ever own this model of phone?
Well, when in doubt, it is simple. You key in the first numbers that come to mind.
1153.
The phone unlocks. You are surprised - you did not really expect it to work, to be honest. Noting that you have no signal bar on the phone, you look through the contacts for any clue as to why you are here.
It is empty. In fact, there is nothing inside the phone besides a single, mysterious message from an unknown number.
The touch of the dead eats away at both body and mind.
You are not sure what the creepy message means. Still, you have no contacts to call - the phone isn't of much use to you at the moment. You're not even sure it is yours anyway. You pocket the phone and look around.
There does not seem to be anything else of interest in the ward; nothing to explain how you got here. The pillows and beds appear normal, for a hospital – which is to say that they are uncomfortable enough that you would not like to bring one home, but not enough so that you would prefer to have woken up on the cold hard floor instead. The panels above the beds appear to be active; small red lights are lit, and you have a feeling that if you press the call button it would ring the buzzer at the nearby nurse station. It would probably be more polite to go out and find one, though, rather than calling them in to explain matters.
Gripping the handle, you push open the door tentatively and poke your head out.
The hallway is well lit but there is no one in sight. Here, as inside the ward, the sharp scent of disinfectant nestles in your nostrils.
“Hello?” you call out. Your voice echoes down the empty corridors without a reply. This is strange. Even in an empty ward in the wee hours, there should be at least a nurse or two walking around, if only to keep an eye on things. A placard above the room you just left indicates that it is Ward 201. The plates indicate the names of the patients, but none of them are familiar to you... not that you seem to remember anyone’s name.. A floor-plan on the wall directly opposite you tells you that the nurse station is just ahead. If there is someone there and they did not hear you calling, perhaps they are sleeping on the job. It would not be a surprise; at least, it would be preferable to the alternative.
You round the corner.
There is no one on duty – each of the three swivel chairs are empty and facing you. You suddenly realize that the hospital feels very cold… though you have no way to tell whether it is the lack of human warmth or excessive air-conditioning. Still perplexed at the situation, you walk behind the counter of the nurse station. There are files and folders lined neatly inside their racks, containing forms and templates. Some are empty, but most have been filled up with patient information. None of it mean anything to you - flicking through the papers, you note that most of the patients on this floor appear to be young adults, but nothing else strikes you as being particularly out of the ordinary.
Even if there is no signal on your mobile phone, at least there are wired phones that you can use. You reach for the receiver.
A piercing, terrible ringing goes off.
You jump slightly, startled. Though you think it is coming from the phone at first, you quickly realize that is not the case. Casting your gaze around wildly, you find that a large red light is blinking quickly to attract your attention. Besides it is a number: 201. A buzzer has just been pressed in the empty room that you left.
***
A. Turn back and investigate room 201. Someone might have snuck in there while you went to the nurse station. If there is anyone there, they might be able to shed some light on this situation.
B. Chalk it up to a mechanical fault, try to ignore the buzzer, and pick up the phone. You try and call one of the emergency service numbers pasted on the desk.
C. Leave this floor. Something feels wrong. You head for the main stairs and descend to the ground floor. You might be able to exit the hospital from there.
D. Leave this floor. Something feels wrong. You head for the rooftop. The air in this hospital feels wrong, and strangely, the windows can't be opened. You need some fresh air to think better.
