Incident Report: The Condemned Hospital

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nightstand with the fingers already bent my eyes opened to an empty surface the hand was out in the air i pulled it back and looked at it gray ceiling thin mattress the gown i was wearing was thin cotton stiff at the seams the air in the room was cool on my arms the light came from strip fixtures in the walls even dim the same in every direction i didn't know how i got here the door was open a few inches a lit hallway empty still a doctor would come someone would explain that was what i decided i waited the light didn't change i'd been lying there long enough to lose track of it and the room looked exactly the same as when i woke up no shift from morning to afternoon no shadows crossing the wall the strip fixtures ran the same brightness they'd been running at when i opened my eyes i didn't know what time it was i had no way to check a hospital is never this quiet no equipment sounds no voices from other rooms no doors no carts nothing the silence was total i lay there and listened to it for a while then i sat up my legs swung over the left side of the bed my feet hit the linoleum cold through bare soles a card sat on the nightstand and i looked at the nightstand small folded printed in a plain font andrew i read it once it felt close enough not like a name i'd always had more like a name i'd been told recently i set it back down the room was small concrete walls under a thin coat of paint a bed a nightstand no call button by the bed no phone i checked the drawer empty i went to the door the hallway was clean lit the nightstand was lit and empty the air out here was the same temperature as the room no warmth from bodies no smell of food or antiseptic or anything used just flat recycled air moving at a low rate through the ceiling vents a nurse's station at the far end a curved desk with a monitor stack a rack of clipboards on the wall behind it a keyboard centered in front of the main screen charts and slots equipment on the surface everything where it should be two exactly i've been in rooms like this before i think real ones real stations have coffee cups sticky notes on the monitor edge someone's pen left out this station had none of that it had the right objects in the right positions and nothing else hello my voice went into the hallway and stopped no carry no echo no answer i walked toward the station halfway there my left foot came up over the wall and i looked at the wall and i saw a man standing there and i thought over a tile a slight rise in my stride maybe two inches of clearance not enough to be a real step i was looking at the station and my leg just adjusted i stopped looked down at the tile nothing no crack no raised edge no discoloration same linoleum as every tile around it i stepped on it deliberately it took my weight the same as any other i stood there for a moment then i kept walking i stood still and listened through the walls low industrial the deep register of large heating systems running in a large space i put my hand against the concrete a slow vibration constant a warehouse sound hospitals have their own ambient layer ventilators the soft click of iv monitors voices at low volume from down a corridor this building had none of that what it had was a massive industrial system built to push heat through a lot of empty space underneath that from inside the vents above the ceiling tiles a clicking faint rhythmic one click every two seconds roughly too regular for a mechanical part cycling under load too short for a damper or a blower i looked up at the nearest grill the slats were angled so i couldn't see through them i listened to it for a while then i moved on the corridor ran two directions from the station i went right at the end of it a window black on the other side not dark black i pressed my face against the glass it was cold my breath fogged a small circle on the surface i waited for shapes to resolve they didn't there was nothing to resolve i tapped the glass with one knuckle flat thin the sound of a panel in a frame not a window with open air behind it i tapped it again in a different spot same sound i looked at the frame normal painted identical to any window frame in any hospital corridor i went back to the station at the station i pulled a chart from the rack 30 days of entries in careful columns temperature heart rate blood pressure daily notes the handwriting was consistent throughout the same person recording the same numbers every day for a month the same person recording the same numbers every day for a month the same person recording the same numbers every day for a month the same person recording the same numbers every day for a month at the top of the form a box for the patient's name empty admitting physician empty admission date diagnosis next review all empty 30 days of someone's body tracked in fine detail with nothing written down about who that body belonged to i put it back pulled another same format same blanks a room near the station had its door standing open a few inches inside a bed made tight a gray gown folded on the mattress a meal tray on the side table with the plastic cover still on the room was set up for someone who hadn't arrived or had been here and was taken out without disturbing the arrangement i closed the door back in the hallway my right hand came up toward my hip automatic my fingers found the fabric of the gown no pocket i stood there with my hand pressed flat against my side not sure what i'd been reaching for a phone keys something that should have been there nothing was there i looked down the hallway maybe 20 minutes since i woke up i kept moving the drawer slid open without resistance first office end of the ground floor corridor desk chair filing cabinet against the wall empty inside not cleared out never used the metal runners were clean no friction marks on the guides no dust displaced along the bottom i pushed the drawer closed and checked the desk a pen centered in the top drawer cap still on a notepad to the right of the keyboard every page blank not turned to a clean sheet a computer on the desk the screen dark the keys were cold nothing happened when i tapped them held the power button down nothing no fan no click no indicator light the second office was smaller a whiteboard covered most of the far wall someone had drawn a grid in black marker columns and rows a data table the column headers were alphanumeric codes two letters then a two-digit number a sequence i didn't have enough context to read every row was blank i stepped closer up close the board had a faint chemical smell not fresh the kind that's been sitting in a closed room for weeks there was one chair against the far wall i looked at it for a moment then went back to the corridor a staircase at the far end of the ground floor one i hadn't tried it went up the steps were bare concrete my feet were loud in the stairwell the second floor was the same same linoleum same wall paint same even light from the same strip fixtures same ceiling vents Spaced the same distance apart. Closed patient room doors on both sides. A nurse's station at the center with the same chart rack. Same 30 days of entries. Same blank fields at the top. A window at the far end of the corridor. Didn't press my face against it this time. Same frame. Same black. Kept walking. The stairwell door was at the other end. A push bar across the middle. Spring loaded to close behind you. My hand wrapped around the bar. The metal was cold. No paint. No grip. Bare steel. My arm slowed. A half second drop before my elbow could straighten. My hand was on the bar. My arm was half extended and it wouldn't push. I stood there for a moment. Then I made it move. The door swung open onto a flat wall. Bare cinder block, floor to ceiling. No gap at the top, no gap at the sides. Two inches of air between the door frame and the wall. That was all. No stairs. No landing. No space to step into. The door went as wide as the hinge allowed. The seam where the concrete blocks met the door frame was precise. Factory fitted. The blocks were cut to the exact dimensions of the frame. Someone had designed a door that opened into a wall. Someone had built it exactly as designed. The door closed on its spring. I walked back toward the stairs. In the middle of the corridor, I stopped and looked up. The clicking was clearer up here. I stood directly under one of the ceiling vents and listened. One click. A pause of about a second and a half. Another. I started counting. I got to thirty. The interval was the same each time. Not a mechanical part cycling under load. Not a damper or a blower. The duration was too short. Too consistent. Something deliberate, but I couldn't confirm it through the slats. Not one vent. A second source further along the corridor, slightly offset from the first. A half-beam. A half-beam. A half-beam. behind, its own rhythm running parallel. A third passed that, offset again. Tried to count the sources. Lost count. My head was tilted back, eyes on the ceiling. After a minute, the back of my neck ached. The slats of the grill were angled, designed to let air through from above, but not to let anyone look up through them from below. I went back downstairs. The corridor stretched another 50 feet past the nurse's station before ending at a set of double doors. Wide. Built for pushing medical carts through. Small, square windows were set into the top half of the wood, with wire mesh inside the glass. I stopped and looked through the mesh. A massive room. Low energy? Unfocused? Foggy? You might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade hydrates better than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist. I hate Mondays. King's Hawaiian cinnamon swirl bite? Taylor Hansen? Sure, I'll try one. Hey, let's get back to work, please. But Taylor Hansen's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites. Taylor Hansen? Nice. Try one. Mmm. Bites. King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites. There's nothing like it. Sweet swirling is all good. Lights on. Empty. I pushed the right door open. It swung inward with a heavy, oiled glide. I stepped inside and let it close behind me. The heavy click of the latch settling made the room feel even more isolated. The space was much larger than the ward. The ceiling was higher, but the strip fixtures were the same. An even, dim gray in every direction. I breathed in. No smell of food. No smell of old coffee or grease. Just bleach. Old bleach and flat, recycled air moving through the ceiling vents. A long serving station sat against the back wall. A metal counter with a glass sneeze guard angled over it. The equipment was running. The low hum of electric heating elements carried across the room. I stepped behind the counter. A row of deep steel basins sat set into the metal surface. The elements beneath them were turned on. The water inside was hot. Thin white steam rose off the surface and hit the glass guard. I looked out of the window, but I couldn't see anything. I couldn't see anything. I could only see the glass guard. Small drops of condensation gathered there, merged and rolled down the glass. I held my hand over the nearest basin. The steam was hot against my palm. Five basins total. All full of hot water. All steaming. No food trays. Not empty food trays. No trays at all. Just hot water boiling away into an empty room. I walked past the serving line to the far corner. A large vending machine stood against the wall. Lit up. My right hand moved. It slapped against my right thigh. A quick, automatic pat. Checking a pocket. Looking for a wallet. My fingers hit the thin cotton of the hospital gown. No pocket. No wallet. I looked at my hand. Then at the machine. The glass front was bright. Inside, the metal spirals held snacks. Silver foil wrappers. Every single spiral on every single row held the exact same silver foil wrapper. A generic rectangular shape. No brand name. No pictures. No nutritional information. Just shiny silver paper wrapped around a block. I looked for the slot to put money in. I didn't have money, but I looked anyway. No coin slot. No card reader. No keypad. Just a glass box with a light inside, displaying the exact same silver foil wrapper. I turned away and looked at the seating area. Dozens of square tables. Four chairs to each table. Arranged in perfect straight lines across the linoleum floor. My legs felt heavy. The walking was catching up to me. I went to the nearest table to sit down. I grabbed the back of the metal dining chair and pulled. It didn't move. I stopped. I sat my feet, gripped the metal tighter, and pulled harder. The chair stayed exactly where it was. I looked down at the floor. The four legs of the chair ended in flat metal plates. Each plate was bolted directly through the linoleum. Thick steel bolts driven straight down into the concrete underneath. I checked the chair next to it. Bolted down. The next table. Bolted down. Every chair in the room was fastened. I sat my feet, gripped the metal tighter, and pulled. It didn't move. It ended in flat metal plates. Every chair in the room was fastened to the floor. Placed on an exact mark, bolted deep into the concrete, and left there. Nobody could move them. Nobody could pull a chair up to another table. Nobody could push a chair back to cross their legs. I stood in the middle of the tables. The big industrial heaters groaned somewhere far above the ceiling. Then the noise hit. It came from the wall behind the serving counter. A clatter. Heavy sound. Heavy steel hitting bare concrete. It didn't echo like a sound inside the cafeteria. It was muffled by the drywall but physically close. Directly on the other side of the solid wall. I flinched. My shoulders pulled up to my ears. I froze. I stared at the wall behind the hot water basins. I stopped breathing. I listened. The silence settled back in. One second. Two seconds. Then I heard it. A scrape. A heavy, dragging scrape. Hard rubber sliding against a rough concrete floor. Then a dull thud. A footstep. Someone was there. Standing on the other side of the wall. They had dropped something heavy and now they were shifting their weight. My chest tightened. The air in the room felt thin. I didn't call out. Every instinct told me not to make a sound. I took a slow step backward. My bare foot slid over the linoleum. Then I turned. I walked fast. Not running, but moving as fast as my legs could handle without making heavy slapping sounds. I wove through the bolted tables. I kept my eyes on the double doors. I hit the right door with both hands. It swung open wide. I slipped through and let it close behind me. I was back in the hallway. My heart hammered against my ribs. I breathed fast. Taking short breaths through my nose. I looked back at the doors. I watched the wire mesh in the wind. windows. No one came through. I backed away from the cafeteria. I turned and walked fast down the main corridor, heading back toward the empty nurse's station. I wanted to be out of the open. The stairwell on the near side of the nurse's station, the narrow one, not the false door. I put my foot on the first step and my eye caught the underside of the step above me. A strip of paper, taped flat. The tape had yellowed at the edges and gone stiff. The strip was small, torn from a notepad, the kind of size you use for a single line. I peeled the tape back carefully. It had bonded to the paper. The edge tore slightly when it came free. The handwriting was hurried. Two lines. D3. Check before sign-off. I held it under the stairwell. The paper had gone soft. Not brittle, just soft, the way paper gets after years in a fixed position in the same temperature. It wasn't left here last week. Someone who worked in this building wrote a reminder to themselves, taped it where they'd see it on their way down and never came back to collect it. I didn't know what D3 was. I looked down the stairs. The refrigeration units were audible from here. A low, continuous sound. Rising from below. The kind that comes through concrete rather than air. Cold moved up the stairwell against my face and arms. I folded the strip of paper once and kept it in my hand as I went down. Chapter 3. The Morgue. The cold hit before I reached the bottom. I could hear them now, a low, sustained tone below the industrial sound of the heaters. Two separate systems. The heaters warming the space above. Something else keeping the space below at a lower temperature on purpose. I slowed on the last three steps. At the base of the stairwell, the door was closed. I pulled it open and found the wall switch inside. The lights came on. The room was large. Larger than I expected. The ceiling was low and the walls were close and every surface was the same. White tile. Clean grout. No discoloration along the base. I looked up. There was no light. Both walls lined with stainless steel doors, six on each side. Each door was a rectangle set into the tile with a short chrome handle, flush with the surface. Below each handle a small bracket. Some brackets held folded cards. Some were empty. In the center, an examination table, stainless steel, a drain set into the concrete underneath it. The table surface was clean and dry. Someone had scrubbed it. No residue around the drain. No faint markings in the steel. At the far end of the room, past the table, a single faucet over a deep basin. A thin drip came from the tap. The only sound that wasn't the refrigeration. The air in the room had no smell. Not antiseptic. Not chemical. Not organic. Nothing. Just cold and dry. I breathed in through my nose. My chest stopped. Just for a moment. A half second of suspension before the breath came back out slowly. I stood there and finished the exhale. I walked to the first door on the left. The handle was cold. Not just cool. The metal pulled heat out of my palm fast enough that I wanted to let go. I didn't. I pulled. The mechanism released with a soft click and the tray slid out on its rail, smooth. No resistance. Ball-bearing runners. A black bag on the tray. A zip along the top, the pull tab resting against the left side. The zip was stiff from the cold and needed two pulls. A face. Male. Low energy. Unfocused. Foggy. Great tasting hydration no matter where you're going. Gatorade. Hydrates better than water. Is it in you? Ugh, I hate Mondays. Uh, Taylor Hansen? Sure, I'll try one. Mmm. Bites! Ba-da-ba-da-ba! But Taylor Hansen's making my day way better. With these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites. Taylor Hansen? Nice! Try one. Mmm. Bites! Ba-da-ba-da-ba-do! Sweet, swirly, so good! Eyes closed. Expression neutral. Skin pale and even. I looked at it for a moment before I leaned in. The skin had no variation. In the light of the more, it was the same color from the center of the forehead to the outer edge of the jaw. The same finish everywhere. No pores, no marks. The lips were dry and even. No moisture on the surface. A real face has all of that, even in death. It has variation. This didn't. I put two fingers against the cheek. The material gave. Not the way skin gives. I pressed again. Silicone. Medical-grade, from the feel of it. I pulled back and looked at the jaw. There was a seam, fine, running along the line where the jaw meets the neck. I pressed my thumbnail against it and felt the edge catch. Another seam at the temples, following the hairline, the same color as the surrounding material and almost invisible. Someone had put this together carefully. A toe tag. Prop. Subject replacement. I stood there in the cold and looked at the word replacement for a moment. Slid the tray back. The ball-bearing runners ran smooth and the door clicked shut. Second door. Same soft click and the tray came out. Female this time. Same synthetic skin. Same finish. No variation. No pores. Seams along the jaw. Seams at the temples. Her face was still, even, unmarked. I didn't lean in this time. Tag. In the bracket. Prop. Subject replacement. I slid the tray back. Stood between the two rows of doors and looked at the rest of them. My feet carried me to the next door down on the right side and my hand wrapped around the handle and stayed there. My hand on the handle. The cold metal. The waiting tray. I pulled. The mechanism released. The tray came out on its runners. I unzipped the bag. Not a general resemblance. A face in silicone. The line of my jaw at exactly the angle it sat. My nose at its exact width and length. The particular shape of my forehead. The specific depth of the hollows under my eyes. I stood very still. The same slight asymmetry on the left side of the mouth I'd have noticed if I'd seen a photograph. The silicone gave. I stepped back. My shoulder found the wall behind me and I looked up. I leaned into it. Someone had cast my face. Put it in a bag. Labeled it with a standardized inventory tag and filed it in a refrigerated drawer in the basement. I pushed off from the wall. My legs took me toward the stairwell door. The ground floor corridor again. Near the end, where the corridor should have met an exterior wall, a line of light ran along the bottom edge of the wall panel. Thin. Yellow-white. Steady. Leaking from a gap where the panel didn't quite meet the concrete floor. I got down on one knee. The linoleum was hard and cold against my kneecap. Cool air moved against my face through the gap. Not the recycled air of the ward. Different. Colder. In the second office, I had found a metal chair sitting against the wall. I twisted one of the legs until the bolt dropped. The jagged edge of the metal pressed into my palm. I gripped it tighter. I carried the loose leg with me down the hall. The bottom corner of the wall panel bent away from the floor. I pushed the flat end of the tube into the small gap. Pushed my weight down on it. The panel resisted. Wood splintered. I pushed harder. It gave. The panel swung outward on stiff hinges. Heavy. Not the kind in a hospital door. Cold air came through before the panel was fully open. Not the recycled temperature of the ward, but actual cold. Unheated. The kind that settles in a space nobody maintains. It hit my face and my chest through the gown fabric. The smell was different, too. Concrete dust and something faintly electrical. A metal walkway on the other side. A railing. The grating was open diamond mesh. I could see the concrete floor through it, a long way down. I stepped through the gap in the wall. Bare soles on steel grating. The sharp edges of the grid pressed up into the bottoms of my feet. From the outside, the hospital ward was a large, square box sitting on a concrete floor. Thin wood and plastic panels. Above the walls, thick metal pipes held up large stage lights. Heat radiated out into the cold air. The lights pointed down straight into the rooms. Thick black cables ran across the concrete floor, tying into a main power box against the wall. From out here, the building was just wood and wire. It was like a movie set. It was built to look real only if you were standing on the inside. From out here, it was just wood and wire in a massive warehouse. I looked out over the railing. The ceiling high up in the shadows. Cold air settled deep in my lungs with every breath. The metal walkway ran along the entire perimeter wall. Fifty feet away down the line, another nurses' station. Visible through a gap in the exterior walls, the exact same curved desk, the same blank computer screen, the same plastic charts in the metal slots. Past that second station, more patient rooms sat with their lights on. I stood completely still. The silence in my hallway made sense now. The warehouse wasn't empty. I was just alone in my specific box. I kept walking, walking down the metal path. The cold steel pulled the heat out of my bare feet. Against the far wall of the warehouse, a row of long, white light tubes hung from the ceiling. One of the tubes blinked fast. A sharp ache started behind my eyes. Under the lights, tables were pushed together in a long line. Computer monitors covered the tables. Some sat on small wooden blocks. Rolling office chairs sat in front of the screens. The plastic arm rests cracked. I stopped walking. Video played on the monitors. On one screen, a person in a gray hospital gown walked down a bright hallway, stopped at a door, opened the door and looked inside. On another screen, a different person sat on the edge of a bed, staring down at the floor. On a third, someone stood at a nurses' station, pulled a chart out of a slot. Above the folding tables, a large white board was bolted into the concrete wall. Crooked, the left side lower than the right. Words written in thick black marker. The left column had subject codes. The right column had status words. Active, reset, suspended. Small tick marks sat next to some of the codes. Near the bottom of the board, one code had four tick marks next to it. A man sat at the table. Third chair from the left. Dark blue work shirt. Long sleeves covering his arms down to his wrists. Next to his keyboard sat a coffee mug. A clipboard sat flat on the table on his right side. Ink covered the clamped page all the way down. Times and notes. He stopped typing. Looked up at a screen on his left. The screen showed the high metal walkway. A man in a grey hospital gown standing by the railing. He picked up his pen. Pulled his clipboard closer. Wrote a note on the paper. Put the pen back down. He reached out with his left hand. Grabbed a microphone on the table. Pulled it closer to his mouth. Pressed a button on the base with his thumb. Large speakers clicked on above my head. His voice came out, loud and flat. Subject 14D has breached the code. Preached perimeter containment. Take five is a loss. Initiating reset protocol. He let go of the button. The speakers clicked off. He put his hands back on the keyboard and started typing again. The vents above the walkway opened. A hiss first from both sides. Two separate vents releasing at once. Then the smell. Thick and sweet. Not chemical. Not sharp. It coated the back of my throat on the first breath and my eyes watered. I got one full breath of it before my legs started to go. Not slowly. My legs just stopped holding and I went straight down. My hands slid the length of the railing. My knees hit the grating hard. My shoulder went. My cheek was against the mesh. The cold of the grating pressed into the bone below my eye. I could feel the diamond. The diamond pattern of it against my skin. The warehouse tilted. Across the floor. The monitor wall. A dozen screens. The screens compressed and dimmed. The warehouse went with them. Low energy. Unfocused. Foggy. Great tasting hydration no matter where you go. Gatorade. Is it in you? Ugh, I hate Mondays. Taylor Hansen? Sure, I'll try one. Mmm. Bites. Ba-dup-ba-dup-ba. Taylor Hansen? Nice. Try one. I'm going to get a new pair of these. Mmm. Bites. Ba-dup-ba-dup-ba. Taylor Hansen? Nice. Try one. Mmm. Bites. Ba-dup-ba-dup-ba. Taylor Hansen? Nice. the grating pattern was still pressed into my cheek when i opened my eyes Try one. Mmm. Bites. Ba-dup-ba-dup-ba. metal chair metal table the edge of the seat caught the backs of my thighs through the gown fabric a single bulb on a cord lit the table and not much past it raw concrete floor walls ceiling. My right hand was flat on the table in front of me. I moved it. I waited. The door opened. A man came in, late fifties, dress shirt, no tie, the kind of jacket you wear when someone is watching but not closely. He was carrying a thin folder. He pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and sat down. He set the folder on the table without putting his hand out or offering his name. He looked at me the way you look at a form you've filled out many times and are about to fill out again. He opened the folder. You're going to want to ask why you were selected for this. You weren't. You found us. You responded to a listing on a government contractor job board. You sat in one of our offices and asked when you could start. He took a document from the folder, turned it across the table to face me. Section 4, paragraph 2 covers the memory suppression protocol in full detail. You initialed it. Page 9 is your signature. I looked at the document. The paper was thick, the font small. The middle section was dense: definitions, sub-clauses, numbered lists. I could see where the initials went. One set of initials per page, in the margin, small. My handwriting. I recognized it. I looked at page 9. My signature in the box. Needed the money. Stopped reading. The boss waited. My mind found a kitchen. Not in the room. Somewhere else. A table. Light from a window at an angle that meant late afternoon. Envelopes in a stack at the corner of the table. A dozen of them or more. The kind with red text printed along the edge. Past due. Final notice. A laptop. A PDF on the screen, the scroll bar near the bottom. I was near the end of the document, the middle section dense and unread. At the top of the first page, in a box, a number, a lump sum. Large enough that I had stopped on the first page and not gone back to the second. A woman's voice. Not her face. Just her voice on the other side of the table or somewhere close. This covers everything we discussed. My hand on a pen. A ballpoint. The cap off. The nib at the line. The envelopes. The number. The unread middle. I came back to the room. The man across the table had not moved. He was still. Desperate men make fast decisions. You needed the money. That's not a judgment. It's consistent across most of our subjects. He removed a second sheet from the folder and set it on the table without handling it. He said, "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. There's nothing on the table without handing it to me." "A maintenance log. Single page. You've found the morgue on three of your four previous takes. You always go there eventually." He said this the same way he'd said everything else. "This take. Your previous iteration left a note in the stairwell. That's a first. The body finding a way around the protocol. That's actually useful data." "You'll have questions about the replacement in the third day." "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about." "The ward needs to read clean for the next run, regardless of what condition we find it in. The replacement handles that. He closed the folder. I asked him whether any of the four previous versions of me had passed. He picked up the folder and stood. Perimeter integrity isn't the primary containment mechanism. It never has been. The gas handles breach response. Whether the panel holds or not doesn't affect the outcome of the run. That information isn't relevant to the current run. He moved toward the door and knocked twice on the inside of it. You were never going to leave. The door opened from the other side. He walked through. The vent above the table. I recognized the smell before the hiss started. I looked at the door. I wasn't angry at the man who had just left, not at the operator, not at anyone. I was the one who signed. My hands went flat on the table. The metal was cold. My arms were heavy. My head dropped forward. The last thing I heard was the heaters. That low industrial tone coming from somewhere above and far away. The deep sound of a system built to heat a very large space. I heard it before I was fully awake. My eyes opened. Gray ceiling. Thin mattress. Strip fixtures in the walls. Even dim. The same in every direction. Not dangerous. Daylight. Not any particular time. The door was open a few inches, the way a door sits when someone has just left. I didn't know how I got here. My legs swung over the left side of the bed. My feet found the linoleum in the same spot. The cold came through my soles. My right hand moved. It reached toward the nightstand at the same angle, fingers already curled. Nothing there. I looked at my hand. Put it down. Stood. I walked into the hallway. A voice came from somewhere above. Flat. Synthesized. "Good morning. Quarantine protocols are active. Please remain in your designated ward. A doctor will be with you shortly." "I'm sorry. I don't know if you can hear me." "I'm sorry. I don't know if you can hear me." "That's it from me. I'm Rex. Thanks for your time tonight. Subscribe and ring the bell if you want the next one. Comments are always open. Goodnight." "Ugh. I hate Mondays." "Kings Hawaiian Cinnamon Swirl Bite?" "Taylor Hansen? Sure, I'll try one." "Mmm." "Bites. Ba-choo-ba-dum. Bites." "Hey, let's get back to work, please." "But Taylor Hansen's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly Kings Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites." "Taylor Hansen? Nice." "Try one." "Mmm." "Bites. Ba-choo-ba-dum. Ba-choo-ba-dum." "Kings Hawaiian Cinnamon Bites." "Don't you love 'em?" "There's nothing like it." "Sweet, swirly, he's all good."