The Hospital?

            “Ten days…ten days without sleep,” Trevor thought to himself as he awoke from another sleepless night.

            As Trevor got out of bed and made his way to the bathroom, the hardwood floor seemed to shift and change shape with each step Trevor took. Trevor felt his feet step into what felt like carpet as he trudged sleepily to the bathroom. Trevor could not tell whether he was walking on hardwood or carpet anymore, and it made little difference to him; although he swore that what he was walking on was hardwood, although his lack of sleep led him questioning his senses.

            When he looked in the mirror, what he saw was something he didn’t want to see, but knew was inevitable. His face was grey and pallid, his eyes were but white orbs in sunken craters around his eyes, and the lack of sleep gave him the appearance of coming back from the Somme. He couldn’t even bother to look at himself, the sight of him made him want to do whatever was necessary to fix this.

            He couldn’t even remember what day it was, but when he looked at his phone, he saw that it was March 20, and a smile crept to the ends of his lips. March 20 was the day he scheduled with the local hospital to have his insomnia looked at and hopefully fixed. The notification came up that his appointment was in one hour, and in haste, he grabbed a quick cup of coffee to hold him over. Wanting to get this fixed as quickly as possible, Trevor took the liberty of heading out early in the hopes of getting an appointment earlier than he was scheduled.

            Deciding it best not to take his car since he wasn’t coordinated enough to drive, Trevor settled upon walking to the hospital; it was only a short distance away anyway. Yet, when he walked outside, he felt that it was freezing outside, even though the thermometer said it was 67 degrees Fahrenheit. Confused at why it was so cold at such a warm temperature, Trevor thought that it was either him that was cold or the thermometer that was broken. Nonetheless, he still put on a coat and made his way to the hospital.

            Along the way, people were noticeably staring at Trevor in such a heavy coat while everybody was wearing more comfortable clothing. Trevor was beginning to think that it was him that was feeling cold, but his senses along with his sense of reality has been noticeably blurred over the past couple of days.

            At first, it was only minor incidents such as misremembering little details such as numbers or certain facts. However, as his insomnia progressed, he felt things more noticeably; he began to hallucinate, such as seeing people in places, which later proved to never be there in the first place. At one point, he even thought he saw the sky change to a deep shade of green, a shade that he had never seen before; to Trevor, it was horrifying, It was horrifying not only because it was something arbitrary, but because he couldn’t discern whether it was real or not.

            Trevor was an overall paranoid man, he couldn’t discern whether things were real or not, and he couldn’t prove that he was real or a manifestation of something else. Trevor was a strong believer of Descartes’s famous saying “I think there fore I am,” but Trevor didn’t know what to think, and if it even made any difference whatsoever. In summation, he was a scared man, whose life was nothing more than a series of questions, stuck in a point in one of many timelines.

            The walk took longer than expected, but at last, Trevor saw the hospital over the horizon, and walked a little faster, even though he was twenty minutes early. In lieu of all the activity going on at the hospital, Trevor’s insomnia ridden ignorance kept him focused on only arriving at the entrance. Unfortunately, in his passionate quest to reach the entrance, Trevor didn’t see the sizeable rock directly in front of his path. When he hit it, Trevor didn’t necessarily feel himself tripping at first, but rather was asking himself why he was falling suddenly. When he met the earth, Trevor hit his head on the ground; not hard enough to do any lasting damage, but to distort his sense of reality even further, into something truly horrifying.

            A nurse who saw the whole thing came up to Trevor to help him up, thankfully, the fall didn’t hurt Trevor too much. When Trevor saw the nurse, he immediately remembered his appointment and asked the nurse about it.

            “Ah yes, you’re Trevor aren’t you? Well, come with me, you’re early, but fortunately, your doctor can get you in for an appointment now if you’d like,” the nurse said.

            “Yes please, that would be wonderful, I have insomnia terribly and was hoping you could help me out,” Trevor said.

            “We certainly will.”

            The nurse took Trevor inside, and what Trevor saw next was something he couldn’t believe. He wasn’t sure whether what he saw was real or not, but the question of reality wasn’t in his mind, instead, it was pure fear that took hold of him.

            The inside of the hospital was less like a hospital and more like a slaughterhouse. Everywhere Trevor saw there was a thick and heavily coating of smeared blood on the walls, puddles of urine and feces all over the floor, and on the walls as well, and somehow, on the ceiling. The smell was overpowering and even though Trevor didn’t eat much, he felt as though he would lose his lunch and contribute to the overpowering and horrifying mess.

            Trevor didn’t say anything as fear and disgust took hold of him and refused even the slightest sound to be heard out of him. But what he saw next prompted a choked attempt of a scream from his lungs. As he followed the nurse down the corridor, he saw the rooms, filled with entrails, dismembered body parts, and mutilated bodies of both animals and humans. He swore that some of those bodies were still alive as they gurgled faint attempts at forming some futile attempt at communication.

            “No, this can’t be, can it? I’ve been to this hospital before and it never was anything like this,” Trevor thought to himself.

            The nurse didn’t seem to mind too much about the horrific scene, none of the passing doctors or patients seemed to mind too much, not even the dismembered patients seemed to notice anything out of the unusual. In the midst of the gore and the nauseating smell, only Trevor seemed to notice what was going on, which led Trevor to ask himself; am I imagining all of this?

            With the indifference posed by those around him, he was stuck in between deciding whether this was real or whether it was all a product of his insomnia. Modern day sanitation standards wouldn’t allow any hospital to operate in this condition, it looked even worse than British hospitals during the Crimean War. But was what he was seeing true? Everything he saw, smelled, felt, heard, and tasted (mixed with the smell in his pharynx) forced him to think that the situation he was in was real. But if it was, then where were the reactions of the people who surrounded him, he saw the nurse step into more than one pile of entrails and she had no reaction whatsoever. Either he was seeing this on his own, or it was all a sick joke that was being played on him, he didn’t know which one scared him more.

            The nurse took him into a room and told him to wait for the doctor, Trevor wanted to ask for another room, but he knew that it could possibly be even worse than the one he was in. There were body parts laid out on puddles of blood all over the room, from appendages to intestines to organs that should not be outside of the body, blood smeared all over the walls in clearly visible handprints. But the worst part to Trevor was that on the wall next to him, there appeared to be the carcass of a squirrel nailed onto the wall, with its eyes gouged out, its legs contorted into impossible positions and a wide gash running down its chest with organs falling out, yet suspended by the veins and arteries. Trevor was beyond scared, he didn’t know whether it was real or not, and he didn’t care, he just wanted to be out of there, but he knew that if he left, his insomnia might go untreated.

            “This can’t be happening, for the love of God, this can’t be happening,” Trevor thought to himself.

            For a brief moment, he thought he saw something move in the pile of intestines out of the corner of his eye, but when he looked over, it stopped moving.  When he saw that it stopped, he heard someone say hello behind him. Startled and scared out of his wits, it was the doctor who came to help him, surprisingly, he was in a clean, white, pressed coat and looked decently composed in lieu of all he was seeing.

            “Nice to meet you Trevor, I’m Doctor Marcellus,” the doctor said as he extended his hand out to shake Trevor’s hand.

            “Um…nice to meet you doctor,” Trevor said worried.

            “Now I hear that you have been suffering from insomnia, is this true?”

            “Y...yes.”

            “And have you experienced any tiredness during the day, irritability, problems concentrating or hallucinations?”

            Trevor knew that he was experiencing all of those things, but he wasn’t sure if he was experiencing hallucinations since whenever he stepped in a puddle or on something in the hospital, he clearly felt it on his feet and heard a sickening “squish” come from it.

            “Yes, I have experienced all of those,” he said, wondering if he made a mistake in saying that.

            “I see, have you been suffering from an extreme amount of stress lately?”

            It went without saying that being in the abattoir of a hospital that Trevor was stressed enough and he wanted only to leave, but deep inside, he knew that if he stayed long enough, he might find out what was going on. However, he was debating on whether he should stay at the risk of his own sanity, since the longer he felt, the more scared and helpless he felt. He was worried that he would become one of those indescribable mutilated bodies, void of any information and without any hope of escape that he saw in the hallways.

            “Well, only a little bit, but no more than usual,” Trevor said.

            “I see, and one more question, have you had any recent changes in your sleep schedule?”

            “Well, I have been going to bed about an hour or two earlier than I have before.”

            “Mhm, I think that might be the root of your troubles.”

            The more Trevor looked around, the more he became frightened and the more nauseated he felt. He had to ask Dr. Marcellus if what he was seeing was real.

            “Hey doctor, is…um…has the hospital always been like this?” Trevor asked.

            “Been like what?” the doctor replied.

            From across the room, amidst the entrails and the feces, Trevor saw a man receiving an injection…into his eyes. The sight of this made Trevor cringe with an infinite amount of disgust as he saw the man take the elongated needles into his pupils, without even so much as a flinch. The doctor who was administering the shot didn’t seem to pay too much mind to what he was doing and carried on as if it were the most normal thing in the world. This sight was what finally broke Trevor as he began to have a breakdown and ask the doctor if what he was seeing was real. He asked him about the bodies, the entrails, the feces, the carcasses, and the dismembered patients he saw in rooms he passed by. The doctor dismissed Trevor’s claims saying that he was experiencing a severe form of hallucination cause by his lack of sleep. But this was not what Trevor wanted to hear.

            All he wanted to hear was that none of it existed, the horrifying sights did not exist, the bodies did not exist, and the man receiving a shot in the eyes did not exist, that is all he wanted to hear. Even if all he sensed was real, he wanted a second opinion, he wanted someone else to feel the puddles of blood and urine he stepped in and smell the nauseating smell of mangled bodies and feces he experienced in the halls. Even if they could feel what he felt, he would have been glad to hear someone say, “it isn’t real,” he may not have believed them, but he wanted someone else to feel what he felt.

            The doctor did not give him a straight answer, he did not give him any assurance, he just told him that what he was experiencing was a by-product of his hallucinations. By product or not, all Trevor asked for was someone to tell him it was not real. Unfortunately, he didn’t get that, the doctor seemed to be indifferent and prescribed him some pills to get him back on his sleep schedule.

            “Okay so, take two of these before you go to bed, and try to go to sleep at your regular time. This might have been caused by a shift in sleep schedule that your body is not quite used to,” the doctor said, handing the prescription to Trevor.

            “Thank you doc, but I have one thing I would like to ask, has this hospital always been like this?” Trevor asked.

            “In what way?”

            Deciding not to risk mentioning the horrors of what he was seeing lest the doctor think he was insane, Trevor merely said:

            “Has the hospital been…up to standards lately?”

            “The last time we had an inspection, everything was in top condition, and our practices assure only the most skilled individuals and methods,” the doctor said, taking a silent insult at the question.

            “I see, thank you anyway doctor,” said Trevor as he left the room.

            Walking through the hallways gave him an uncertain paranoia that something would jump out of the mess on the ground and attack him. Even though it wasn’t too long a walk back to the front entrance, he felt as though the walk would never end since he was now by himself, save for the mutilated bodies he saw in the hallway and in the rooms. Yet, he looked at the faint outline of what was once a human body and gave a faint smile at it.

            He now knew that it didn’t matter whether what he saw was real or not, but this one body gave him a sickening comfort in knowing that it couldn’t answer him back. It couldn’t tell him what was real nor what wasn’t, it couldn’t make fun of him nor tell him any difference in what he was seeing. As far as Trevor was concerned, it was a collection of flesh formed into the shape of a human; it probably once was able to walk and talk as he did, but now, it was laying there on the ground, with no form and no function, just a pile of forgotten flesh. He still had no idea whether it was real or not, but he decided to take the plunge and ask it the question he wanted to know, after to checking to see if anyone else was watching.

            “Are…you…real?” he asked timidly.

            It didn’t answer, but he couldn’t stop looking at it and expecting an answer, everywhere he looked, there were the entrails and the blood and the feces, but it didn’t bother him anymore. The longer he looked the more he had to wonder how many of these piles of flesh were once living people, people who could tell between what was real and what wasn’t. Whether it was his insomnia that was producing this image, or whether he was seeing something nobody else could, he no longer was afraid of it. The lines of reality were blurred for Trevor and although it may have been rough on him at first, he finally found himself situated at a point where he felt comfortable…even in lieu of a horrid sight.

            When he was finished looking at the gore that was in the hospital, he walked out the front door and looked at the prescription the doctor had written out for him. It was for a bottle of Ambien and a reminder to go back to sleep when he usually did, yet as he stepped outside, he saw something that absolutely perplexed him. Trevor hadn’t even taken ten steps out the front door of the hospital when he looked back inside and saw that the hospital itself was spotless. There were no bodies, no blood, no feces or carcasses, it looked as how a standard hospital should look, clean and sanitized.

            Trevor had no explanation for this, right as he had become comfortable with the horrors he saw, all of a sudden, things shifted once again leaving Trevor in that initial stage of fright. He thought that the gore wasn’t real, but if it could disappear that easily and quickly, he wasn’t even sure if this clean version of the hospital was the real version. He didn’t want to think about it too much since his tired mind had lost a lot of its function without its sleep. He went to the drug store, traded his prescription and went back home. When night fell, he took the Ambien and fell asleep at his normal time; he fell into a deep sleep and never wanted to wake up. But when the time came to arise, he felt refreshed and instantly better.

            He kept this up for two weeks and when he was caught up with his sleep schedule, he felt like a new man. The bags under his eyes were all gone and he was able to stand up straight and walk with pride and confidence in himself. He didn’t experience any more hallucinations, and he felt the same way he did when he was able to sleep weeks before. Trevor felt infinitely better after those two weeks, but when he opened up the newspaper one day, he saw something that made him stop dead in his tracks, and cut off his breathing like clippers to an extended hedge bush.

            The hospital that Trevor went to for help was closed due to sanitation violations because one day after Trevor went to the hospital it was discovered that at least twenty bodies were discovered in an unknown crawlspace beneath the hospital. According to the article, the bodies were horribly mutilated with the walls of the crawlspace being covered in blood and feces, with animal carcasses thrown in the crawlspace as well. It wasn’t fully discovered who did such a horrifying act, but the hospital had to be shut down and quarantined so no diseases would spread throughout it. When Trevor finished reading the article, he went over to the hospital to see if it was true, and sure enough it was with police cars and reporters in front of the hospital all involved with the bodies in some way or another.

            Trevor felt a sickening tremor go throughout him, and when it was over, all he could do was laugh and hope that his vision had nothing to do with the bodies. As he watched everything unfold from the hill he was atop, he turned back and began to go home since he knew that this was an instance that would make no difference whether he believed in it or not.