Sanction

1

Just after she died, she sat up. Her eyes once dull and full of death, now wide and alert like an owl’s, scanning the dark, desolate room. Its cold, drafty air sends shivers down her spine along with the eerie silence, save for the slow, recessive beeps of the monitors tracking her vitals through the wires poking out of her itchy hospital gown. The door opens and two people, she presumes to be nurses, rush in. Oddly enough, they don’t don the traditional blue scrubs that most do. Instead, draped in white coats, black gloves and their faces concealed by surgical masks, they look more like scientists. The two of them look at her before staring at each other for a brief moment. Their glances speak for them, conveying a message of disbelief and exhaustion before looking back to her. Before she can react, they waste no time in restraining her, forcing an anesthetic mask onto her face. The clicking of heels echo through the quiet room, making all three of them freeze as a woman dressed in obnoxiously bright, saturated attire walks in. 

Upon seeing her alive, unwell and confused but still alive, she turns to the nurses. “This is ridiculous! I paid good money, you know!”
“Look ma’am, we’ve tried everything,” One of them reasons. “We even cut off her oxygen.”
“Then why is it still alive?”
“We don’t know.”
She scoffs, “Useless.” Shooting metaphorical, nonetheless sharp daggers at the girl, she grumbles. “I guess if you want something done right, you should just do it yourself.” Clutching her purse, the woman leaves the room in the same abrupt manner she’d entered.
It’s only as her footsteps fade does the girl notice the room is too, spinning into a blurry mess, with nothing that can be done about it. The only option is to lay there, bright lights stinging her eyes with the whispers of death in her ear as hazy chemicals tear through her lungs, slowly yet surely.

“Think she’ll be gone for good this time?” One of them says, their voice meek and quiet.

The other replies, whispering. “I hope. We really need this money.”