There's a buzz in my skull when I try to open my eyes and throbbing in the back of my skull, my throat mimics the Sahara and I am groggy, heavy and slow. I tried to sit up but didn't shift an inch against what I can only assume to be a bed.
My eyes fly open when I realize I couldn't move at all, as I take a moment to look around I realize I am in a room looking eerily similar to my office. Pale walls and bright lights, the same black vinyl chair next to a wall in the room, desk and cabinet in the same location, but I knew this room was significantly larger as there was a bed in here also.
I tried moving around again, but my body was so numb I couldn't feel anything from the neck down. I felt utterly paralyzed and useless.
Time passed slowly when the only thing you could do was look around from side to side. I searched my memory for any indication as to how I got there, but the last thing I remember is needing to go back and then all of a sudden being woozy and passing out. There was a voice at the time I passed out, distorted and a little creepy but for the life of me I couldn't remember what it said.
The more I thought about everything the more I got a piercing headache, as if I was not supposed to remember at all. Against my better judgment, my eyelids began closing because whatever drug they put in my system was working overtime.
I was awakened once again, no sense of the time that had passed in between, but there was a faint shuffling in the room, and I peeked from one eye to see a nurse with beautiful blonde hair that I had never seen at the hospital before.
A groan escaped my lips and she turned to look at me, a smile stretching her lips thin, "Ahh you're awake, welcome back to the land of the living Ms. Azurine."
Her voice was smooth and soothing, easing my tense mind but not managing to take me off high alert, after all I was in a strange place pumped full of drugs and absolutely no idea how I got here.
"Wher-" I had barely begun my sentence, when a cough ruptured from my throat burning like a leather car seat on a hot summer day. The unnamed nurse was quite attentive as she rushed over to me with a glass of water immediately, helping me up so I could take a sip. After successfully quenching my thirst I tried speaking again.
"Where am I?"
She didn't respond immediately, a look of concern crossing her face, the silence deafened me and I was about to break it when she finally responded to me. "I was told be your initial attending nurse that you probably wouldn't have any recollection of what happened before you got here because you had a minor concussion from your fall"
"Minor concussion? Fall? What the hell are you talking about?"
"You collapsed from exhaustion in the hallway two days ago and had a nasty fall on the way down. You were brought here by another nurse and we've been attending to you since. Based on the reports you've been in and out of consciousness this entire time." She finished with a breath.
Everything felt like too much to take in all at once.
"Since you are awake though," she continued, "I'll get your attending doctor to run a check up on you." With that she disappeared from the room before I had the chance to ask her any other questions. Thinking back to what she had said I realized she had evaded my question and I still had no idea where I was.
To my surprise, none other than Dr. Brans walked in and started asking standard questions, whether I had a headache, what I remember, checking my pulse and eye responsivity. Everything felt surreal being on the other end of the inquisition, not asking the questions, but answering them.
Everything proceeded as I expected it to, but there was one specific question that struck me as weird, "Have you experienced any auditory distortions?" I felt a tug in my memory as if I was about to remember something, but it vanished as quickly as it came.
Her eyes scanned every miniscule expression on my face , no doubt observing my body language and trying to see what exactly I would say.
"No." My answer precise and cold while a Dr. Brans seemed to relax, looking somewhat relieved at my answer. She finished up another round of questions noting everything I had answered and was about to leave the room, not before my question could stop her though.
"Why am I here?" She froze, clearly not expecting that to be the first question I asked. Seeing as time had passed and she just stood unable to answer I continued. "I would like to know where I am but seeing that I already asked that question and never got it answered, but rather skillfully evaded, I get the feeling it's a question you can't answer, so at least tell me why I'm here and where the hell my belongings are."
For the first time since I've met Dr. Brans, I heard her laugh, a true laugh. It was scary and rang in the back of my head.
"You know Ravana, you really are too smart for your own good. You're in a contamination unit being monitored for your own safety and the safety of others. After your collapse, you started exhibiting symptoms of the patients you had been treating so we've been taking notice of you for the past two days. As for your personal belongings, they have been confiscated to avoid cross contamination."
Confiscated, the word sent a shiver down my spine. They took everything from my lab coat that had the note inside and my journal in the next pocket, to the shoes I wore on my feet. By the time I looked up from my twisting hands, Dr. Brans had already left the room, once again leaving me to my thoughts.
In the next three days my body basically did a speed run of this virus. It shifted from just headaches to a ringing in my ear, skin sensitivity, hives breaking out all over my arms and legs, finding it hard to remember things. By the fourth day, things had kicked up a notch once again, as I began having bloody noses and my body growing more limp the more I lay around doing nothing all day.
My question constantly went unanswered, and it took minutes of pleading over the span of three days with my nurse whose name I now knew to be Becky before she got the approval to get me a new journal. Considering the last one was possibly burned by now from being 'contaminated', I wrote everything that I could remember up to being sick and everything that happened after that.
Every test, every question, every painstaking moment of being here for the last five days. Another three days passed in the same fashion, with the exception of one thing. About three days ago, I started waking up to new notes being written in my journal, my handwriting but nothing I remembered writing myself. Each one ominous in its own way.
'You're not sick, you're being rewritten.'
'You need to get out, you're not safe.'
'If you stay you'll die, run.'
Three days, three notes, three creepy things to decipher while battling a life threatening illness and losing.
If I'm being rewritten then by who? If I'm not safe here, where should I go? If I run, will I live?
After waking up to that last note, I was out of it for the entire day considering it was a warning of my imminent death. Considering I was already dying, I carefully considered if trying to make an escape was even sensible or plausible.
I've been confined in the same space for a week and a day, there is an adjoined bathroom that I have failed to notice until I was led there after needing to use it. There were no windows or natural light, no signs of life and the only two persons I got to speak with were Becky and Dr. Brans.
So I did what I did best, I journaled, sometimes to the point where I felt mad, but as long as I was awake I kept going. My identity started to crack and showed it through my writing, less on the facts more on how I sincerely felt my sanity slipping pill by pill. My mood and actions were becoming sporadic, the confinement and isolation finally getting to me regardless of the tough exterior I put on whenever someone was looking.
I slipped into my drug infused sleep like any other night, but was restless, unable to stay asleep for more than two hours at any given time. I lay awake in bed watching the ceiling, imagining how nice it must look right now under the pale glow of the moon, the gentle breeze swaying slowly over skin causing a slight chill to run up your arm. I'd give anything to be holed up on my sofa with a good book and a glass of wine.
I let the somberness of it all lull me back to sleep, but before I was fully submerged in slumber, the sound of footsteps caught my attention and a shadow appeared under my door.
A note glided smoothly under the door and across the floor making a stop at the foot of my bed. By the time I dragged my heavy body in a sitting position the shadow had disappeared, thinking nothing of it I pushed my feet off the bed and bent to pick up the note.
I sat back before opening it, given I didn't know the content I would prefer to sit while I read it. Unfolding the piece of paper, it had five words in the center, the same handwriting as the one I had received before.
'Phase 2 begins at midnight.'
Phase 2, what the hell was that? Was there a Phase 1? Had I gone through it already? Who keeps leaving these notes? It said midnight was that referring to today or another day?
Just then I looked up at the digital clock on the desk and the time read 11:59 pm.