Author Games: Red Room

Task Three: St. Judas

Swaggy Pete

I'm in this creepy hospital room right now, and it's a fucking trip. Apparently I had to get my stomach pumped or something last night, and now I'm trapped in a gross-ass hospital with a locked door and a bed and this empty nightstand, and I keep trying to get the attention of the hospital staff by screaming and shit but it's like they're ignoring me at this point. I would rate this hospital two out of five stars, because this is actually not the worst hospital I've been in.

Over the intercom, they're playing my friend Paul saying shit like "If I rated that out of 15, I'd give it a 3" and "If I heard sixteen other stories and had to rank yours against theirs, I'd give you last place." I know that I'm a shit storyteller, but I don't like hearing Paul say it over and over again.

"If I had more time, I could've told you a better story, Paul," I say. The shitty thing about that is that I never have time, so I can't actually tell great stories. Oh well.

I throw my glass of water against this electrical panel on the wall, and a door opens up in the side of the room.

"Sweet," I say.

⏷⏶⏷⏶⏷⏶⏷⏶⏷

Joaquim Luis Ferreira de Costa

DROPPED

⏷⏶⏷⏶⏷⏶⏷⏶⏷

Zion Contreras

The morning sun burned with the reminder of mortality. Zion had always been accustomed to placing his bed directly by the open window so that the rising morning might bring him to the only natural state of wakefulness that existed. It was a time to give praise, a time to worship the end of the darkness and celebrate another day cradled in the hands of God. Now I lay me down to sleep, that was the way the prayer went. But now the light that flooded his eyes was artificial and cold. It lacked the brightness of the new day, replacing it with humming fluorescence and the scent of sterilization.

Hospitals were a place he was familiar with— but this was not a hospital. As he sat up, he could see dull grey concrete on all sides of him, scratches lining the walls where paint chipped with the memory of the nails that clawed it away. Zion's head throbbed, eyes squinting around the room for any sign of familiarity. "Hello?" His voice was a rasp, dry and aching. He expected no answer but the sound of his own voice bouncing off the cold walls, yet disappointment still crept over his shoulders when that was the only reply.

A hot spike of pain raced through him each time his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. Reaching up to touch his forehead, Zion's fingertips brushed across a crust of old blood and a gash across his face that had not been there before.

The bed squeaked as he threw his feet over the edge, metal frame groaning with the weight of its rusted springs. Blinking, Zion let his feet tentatively touch the cold floor. Where am I? He struggled to recall what happened after the events of the bathroom. There was only adrenaline. A bolt for the door followed by the white light of pain. Then darkness. Then nothing. Yet somehow, everything.

Each beat of his heart felt heavier than the next, pulling his arms across his chest as he surveyed the surroundings. There was very little in the room. By his bedside, a nightstand boasted a single cup— filled to the brim with water and the shine of something metallic waiting at the bottom. Drink me! a small, typed note resting beside the cup said. Slowly, Zion picked up the note. The pad of his thumb ran over the letters, feeling their minuscule indentions on the page. In the corner, someone had hastily drawn a smiley face in red marker.