Daring To Feel: A Walking Dead Fan Fiction

Chapter 1: The Hospital

I sit alone in the room with the coma patient, Rick Grimes. I just transferred to this hospital a few weeks ago as a temp receptionist/assistant. I looked at his chart and he's been here a few months, his condition not changing since the day I arrived. I was helping move someone from a bed to a chair when an incident occurred in the hall down the way from where I was working. We were prepping and moving patients, supposedly transferring them somewhere safer when people started screaming. Through the mayhem of trying to figure out what was happening, I got shuffled in here and locked in the room with him. I wasn't exactly sure what went down, but the screams for help terrified me enough to not try and get out right away. I heard what the nurses talked about. I didn't own a TV yet, but rumors went around. I'd say it's been a little under 2 weeks, possibly a bit longer since the incident that got me locked in here, and I'm getting worried about starving to death. I thought some one would've come by now but everything is silent for yet another day. The power has been going on and off as well, the hospital generator using its power to keep an almost empty hospital running, and my cell phone died after a day in here. It never got any service in this dump anyway. The supplies in the room to manage the patients needs, as well as my own are running thin as well. Even if I try to survive on what the patient is on, I'd only last an extra 2-3 days and sitting in the same room with a dead body wouldn't make me feel any better about it. I try to push the door open day after day, but it barely budges. I stand 5'8 and 152 pounds. I'm not small, but I'm not big either and I can't get whatever is in the way to move.

Another day passes and I start to get light headed and weak. My body already running out of its own energy, I begin to scrawl out a letter for whoever finds our bodies here. As I try and think of what I want to say to who finds me, the man speaks from his bed grabbing my attention. "That vase. That's something special." I look over to the only vase in the room. It was left for him by a friend. "Fess up, you steal it from your grandma Gene's house? Hope you left her that special spoon collection" his voice is groggy and he coughs as he tries to laugh. His eyes bulge wide when he sees me, "Shane?" He questions loudly then looking at the dead flowers next to him. I don't say anything, worried how he might respond and he looks around the room for some one else, possibly the man, Shane, he was just talking to. He tries to stand up, removing tubes from his body but he falls to the ground in a heap at the first attempt. "Nurse. Nurse, get a nurse!" He says through his pain clenching at his stomach. Although I'm at his side, I don't say anything back.

"Where am I?" He says in a whisper now, looking at me confused. I turn to get him some water from the restroom sink. I hand it over to him and he gratefully accepts, sitting up now. He drinks the entire glass and puts it down on the floor next to him and I turn around after grabbing it to fill it again, assuming about how thirsty he must feel. "What happened? Where is the Dr? My wife?" He questions, his eyes looking to mine with concern and wonder.

My mind blanks, not knowing what to say or how to explain things that have been going on. He doesn't accept the glass from my hand, as he's waiting for a response. I put it back where I got it from and adjust myself next to him. I put my hands on my hips, trying to think of something to say. As I wait in silence the power grid shuts off and the generator turns on yet again, using whatever juice it has left. He looks around trying to figure out what's happening and I use this as an opportunity to try and explain things "there's been an outbreak of some kind. Things aren't-- Uhm-- aren't good." I spit out.