Excerpt:

"God is cruel. Sometimes he makes you live.", Stephen King

PLINK!

The sharp noise echoing through the alley pulled me back to reality. I was still far away, but just seeing the door, lonely at the end of the corridor, lit only by a broken LED strip that occasionally sparked, gave me goosebumps. The rain had started, and I was still there, hesitant. I took my backpack off my shoulders, my hands soaked and trembling with cold, struggling to free the umbrella. Again, I heard the same sound; it was a drip from a leak in the building next door. The rusty sheet formed a sort of slide that dropped those small, pointed, cold drops into the empty metal of the trash can.

PLINK!

PLINK!

PLINK!

A little over a week ago, I was finishing my shift; an ordinary day, somewhat tiring, but nothing notable in a hospital setting. Just as I was about to grab my backpack and leave, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Diana, we need to talk." It was my boss, damn it.

We didn't get along much; I usually chose the early morning shifts... or, as everyone here calls it, "the fucked-up shift." It's only for those who need urgent money and are willing to sacrifice their sleep and mental health for a mere fifteen dollars an hour.

My boss had his face fixed on me; his wart moved as his mouth did; it was hypnotic, to be honest. He pulled a sheet from a large, faded folder and started signing it; then he bent down to reach a drawer and pulled out a checkbook, signing the check again.

"I'm very sorry, but we have more staff than needed. You're fired; here is your severance. I wish you the best."

I didn't know what to say, just nodded and headed to my car. I threw my backpack on the back seat; the metal handle of the umbrella clanged against the car door. I hit my head on the steering wheel and sobbed, my fingers digging into my scalp.

What am I going to do?

My sister... she, she wasn't well.

Since childhood, she had been severely ill, sick with something complex that weakens her every day.

I can count on my fingers the times I saw my sister full of life. We spent years with the hospital as our second home, and when she turned twelve, she had to be hospitalized indefinitely.

Since I turned legal age, I took nursing courses and passed with great effort and dark circles under my eyes. Right after that, I got a minimum wage job, but it was better than nothing. I had to help my parents with my sister's hospital fees. After my unfortunate dismissal, I wandered the city's job market available for nurses, but I thought my path was over, or so I believed.

In my last interview (or attempt), I saw a man watching me from afar; he wore a black hat and a brown trench coat. Obviously, I kept my distance, but somehow, he shortened the path and saw me leaving the Metropolitan Hospital. He just handed me a small sheet and left into the night.

The sheet only had an address, which is where I am now, and the phrase: "Here, you will never worry about money again."

And here I am: in the wolf's mouth. I took a breath and exhaled. I walked slowly to the door, the echoes of the dripping still sounding; I knocked on the door with a rhythm, connecting the drip's melody with the knock of my fist.

KNOCK!

KNOCK!

KNOCK!

Nothing happened, no movement. The door was steel, gray, with a small old grate. I waited who knows how long there; when I finally turned around, I heard the heavy hinge of the grate opening.

"Welcome. Your interview starts now," a heavy voice responded from the other side.

I swallowed.

The screech deafened the entire alley; it was clear the place urgently needed maintenance. The friction of the door against the floor sent chills down my spine. The first details I saw inside were a kind of dull green offices, a green mixed with brown that conveyed monotony, lit by the classic white lights you find in any hospital.

The common area dazzled me: spacious but messy; only a few chairs placed without much care and an old TV broadcasting a soap opera. Across were the metal stretchers, placed against each other and against the wall, with mattresses covered in blue surgical fabric. Several had little tables with jars and all medical equipment in open drawers. A couple of patients lay motionless; I had to look twice to make sure they weren’t mannequins. Only one muttered. I tried to approach to check his status, but the man who opened the door pointed to a door at the end of the building.

"Follow me." His voice was warmer this time.

He took a key from his pocket, turned it twice, pushed hard, and with a shoulder shove, the door opened. He rubbed his shoulder to ease the pain and raised his hand toward a chair in the office.

"Take a seat, Diana, I'll soon give you your contract."

He pulled from under his desk a yellowed file. It was my dismissal over and over. The world has that sense of humor.

I started reading it over and over; there were terms I didn't understand. I opened it.

At first, it was no different from any other work contract, but as I read, safety warnings, confidentiality clauses, and unorthodox security measures stood out. There were fragments I didn't understand; terms like "captive guard," "revitalizing therapy," and "irreversible process" kept popping up.

The man stared at me desperately, his foot tapping the metal desk. I had a headache. What had I gotten into? I couldn't just quit; I had to commit to this job, if it could be called that.

He continued tapping his foot against the desk leg.

CLANK!

CLANK!

CLANK!

"Any problem, miss? I'm here to serve you."

"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be signing. What would I do here?"

The boss adjusted his shirt, rested his arms on his chin, and leaned over the desk, coming closer to me. A cold electric line ran through my body.

He opened the folder, spreading papers all over the desk.

"Look, miss, your role here won't be very different from your past nursing experiences. Take care of patients, do your shifts, the usual. But..."

He took a sip of his coffee.

"We're a privately founded clinic, and our interests are those of the sponsor. Your mission is to explore the effects of certain medicines or drugs not yet released to the public; you will be in charge of seeing how far the patients can go."

I was stunned. Once I signed, I'd become a walking reaper, only lurking around the poor souls trapped here, counting their days until death. I was going to get out of here, damn it; if I couldn't be a nurse with dignity, I'd try something else: a call center, a teacher, fast food worker. Anything but this madness.

I got up immediately; when I was about to push the heavy door, a sound stopped me.

"Twenty thousand."

I turned quickly; my fingertips slowly released the handle.

If what I thought was true, I couldn't afford my righteous morality to make me lose so much money. My sister needed it. I still held hope she'd recover and we'd travel the Caribbean together, just the two of us after so long.

"Excuse me?"

"Twenty thousand dollars a month. Much more than your sister needs; enough to pay for her treatment with a top specialist. Diana, trust me, your little María will be safe."

"How do you know my sister's name is María?"

"Believe me, I know more than you could understand. Now, are you in?" he said as he shook my hand.

I still wonder how my hand shook his so fast; it was rough, like a file; it even scraped me. He squeezed firmly, not letting me reconsider. When I saw his eyes, I knew; this job tied me to him, I'd dug my grave myself. Great.

He asked me to wait in a small room next to his office while he prepared his instruments. I didn't want to sit; I was nauseous now; just seeing the putrid green of the place made me want to run, but I couldn't, so I settled for looking around.

The ceiling lights flickered irregularly, making the place even more eerie if that was possible. Suddenly, from the stretchers I'd seen at the entrance, a muffled scream sounded, like someone shouting but being silenced. Then a sharp thud.

My new boss came out of his office as if nothing had happened. He wore a folder, an ID, and a mint green clinical uniform.

"Damn, that's a lot of paperwork noise."

My boss responded as if it was any other Sunday and took another sip of his coffee.

I turned pretending not to have heard anything. I didn't want to get into another conversation with that guy. He walked to me and handed me the plastic folder and ID, along with a wrinkled uniform in a half-torn plastic bag.

"Congratulations, Diana, you start tomorrow. Be here before six. And..." —he paused briefly— "due to staff shortage, you'll have night duty. You'll be accompanying one of our longest-serving employees; he'll guide you through everything you need. Rest well; you'll need it."

He patted me on the back, and I swear, I was a second away from slapping it away, but I had to stop.

The rain had returned when I left. I walked several blocks, nearly getting run over several times, until I found a taxi, contract safely in my bag.

The temptation to tell the driver I wanted to go to another city and start over was stupidly real.

But every time I thought about it, I saw María suffering. And I could do nothing but do everything I could for her, even if that meant working in this dump. I just got to bed and collapsed.

The next day, I arrived ten minutes before six. The building looked even more sinister under the autumn fog; the same broken LED strip crackled just like the first time; it was a captivating sight, I must admit. I knocked twice on the metal door before the grate opened. This time it wasn't the boss who received me but what I supposed was the guard, who opened the door. He wore a khaki uniform, a faded plastic tag, and a revolver hanging from his belt.

"Come in," he said without looking up.

Inside, the light was brighter than the previous night; I guessed the morning shift was so tired the light burned. I barely took a step when the smell hit me immediately.

My eyes began to water, and my stomach churned: sulfur, moisture, something like unrefrigerated meat, and something sweet; the cherry on top. I covered my mouth expecting to gag but never did; I guess that's the advantage of not having breakfast. Passing the receiver, a thin nurse with deep dark circles and a red and yellow stained gown greeted me. I didn't want to ask.

"You're with me today; don't touch anything unless I say so. Don't talk to anyone unless strictly necessary; you're not here to make friends. Meléndez, you're here to record and store data, nothing else. Understood?"

I just gave a stupid look and nodded.

We began my tour down a narrow corridor where the doors, submarine-like, also metallic, slightly rusty, with circular windows that let us see the patients inside were numbered, with mysterious nomenclatures I didn't understand. I was going to ask my superior, but he seemed impatient. At one window, I saw a patient tied to a stretcher, chest heaving, his gown soaked with sweat, several syringes inserted in his skin.

The doctors just took notes and kept administering fluid.

"Don't ask, trust me," Ricardo muttered, noticing my stare.

In another room, two doctors injected a nearly glowing green liquid into a dosing machine connected to an unconscious patient. The machine monitoring vital signs beeped irregularly: long, short, total silence, over and over.

Ricardo stopped at the window and made a clock-like gesture with his hand; a doctor inside raised five fingers. As we advanced, I heard sobbing from the last door in the hall. Ricardo gently pushed me to keep walking.

Finally, we reached a common room with barely two free stretchers. On one lay a middle-aged man, extremely thin, eyes open but expressionless. A monitor showed irregular but constant heartbeats. The intravenous drip's falling drops were the only reminder this was no nightmare.

"You'll watch this patient as part of your shift. He doesn’t need food. Just make sure vital signs remain steady and the drip doesn’t stop; if you see anything strange, note it first and then tell me." —he pointed to a transparent bag with viscous amber fluid— "If it empties, call me immediately."

When he left, I was alone with the man under the greenish light. He blinked slowly, took my almost skeletal hand and held my forearm. I barely heard his whisper with his barely left strength.

"Help me..."

I froze. The sound of the drip hitting his arm seemed like a pacemaker. Like a ticking clock demanding I act quickly, pushing me to help this poor man I had to care for. But what if I got fired for helping him?

"Help me..." he repeated.

I didn't know if the voice was real or just my mind playing tricks; let's say stress, despair, hunger, and lack of sleep are a bad combo, and hallucinations wouldn’t be far-fetched. My brain screamed I shouldn't touch or do anything; I had signed a contract to only watch and record, nothing more. But why the hell did my heart tell me otherwise?

I had to focus. But his face, almost skeletal, stained and dehydrated, reminded me of when my sister had one of her attacks. Both were inside a cocoon with no near escape; they could only see the world without the world noticing them.

My foot started moving side to side; I looked at the drip. The amber liquid fell slowly, and he began to shake and grimace in pain like being poked.

"It’s not your problem, Diana. Calm down, finish your shift, gather enough money, and you and María will be far from here soon." I tried to repeat it, but another part of me seemed to want to silence that thought.

A sea of cold sweat poured over me; I even started shaking. I felt my breathing quicken, suffocating. The voice that silenced my plan to do nothing whispered firmly, "Do you really want to carry someone’s death on your shoulders?"

With a quick move, I closed the drip valve.

The flow stopped gradually until no drop remained in the tube. At first, nothing happened; he stayed as hurt and weak. Slowly, his vital signs improved; his breathing resumed, and his eyes finally opened. They looked into my soul; I feared what would come next. I was scared, but he smiled at me. I left the room for fresh air, or at least to not be trapped there with my thoughts longer.

I did the right thing, didn’t I, María?

I walked to the bathroom at the end of the hall. The echo of my steps mixed with the ticks of all the machines. It seemed like the lamps followed me, burning my eyes and making me dizzy.

Inside the bathroom, the mirror, stained white, and the chemical smell burned my nose, but it was better than being in there. I washed my hands slowly and then sat in a corner; I tried not to cry then and there.

That’s when I heard it.

A guttural scream from the ward. Then a thud like a wet cloth falling from a table. That thing was dragging itself, and right after, a vital signs monitor fell to the floor.

I froze.

I headed to the entrance where the guards were supposed to be, where I saw the guard who had let me in that morning walking around; they had to be there. But they weren't. The security desk was empty, with half-drunk cold coffee cups and a pair of dented beer cans on the floor, piled between their chairs.

"Hello!?" I screamed, but my voice barely escaped my body. I looked around, thinking they might be wandering the building, but again, nothing. It would be too easy for me, and if I’ve learned anything in my short time here, it’s that nothing will be easy..."

–Read more in its original Castilian language at https://fictograma.com/ , an open source Spanish community of writers–