“I shouldn’t have come here. I have to get out. I thought I was willing to do anything for this story. But now, I’m not sure if I’ll live to tell it,” I said to the woman in the bed next to mine.
“I guess I should start from the beginning. My name is Grace Parker. I work as a journalist for the New York Times. Recently, I was assigned a new project; to discover the secrets of New Hope Hospital. There were rumors that doctors there were misdiagnosing patients, giving wrong prescriptions, performing unscheduled and unnecessary operations, and even doing experiments on some patients. Crazy, right? It sounded like something out of a movie. So obviously, I had to find out the truth about New Hope. But the only way to do that was to sneak in,” I said. She probably doesn’t want to hear me ramble on like this. The woman looked to be around 8 years old, and very sick.
Just as I was about to stop talking, I heard the woman say in a soft voice, “So, how did you sneak in?” I turned and looked at her, and saw that her eyes were wide with interest.
“Well, I had to get an injury worthy of being taken to the hospital for. Long story short, I threw myself down a flight of stairs and broke my arm. I know it sounds extreme, but like I said, I would do anything for this story,” I said. “My friend called the ambulance and I was brought here. The nurse took me to a room, and said the doctor would be in to help me soon, and then left. So I took the opportunity to look around. I searched the room I was in, but didn’t find much, so I knew I would have to sneak into other areas of the hospital. I walked over to the door and opened it as quietly as I could, but it make a loud squeaking noise as soon as I pushed on it. As I crept down the strangely empty hallway, I felt sort of like a spy. My heart was beating out of my chest out of fear that I would be caught. I saw a room to my left, with the door open and no one inside, so I decided to look around in there. The back wall was lined with tall file cabinets, and papers were scattered across a countertop to the right of the room. I opened a drawer of one of the file cabinets and grabbed the first file. After reading the first few lines in it, I realized that these were records of the experiments done on patients. I quickly took as many of the files as I could fit into my purse and left the room. But when I was walking back to the room I had been assigned to, I was caught by the nurse. She saw the files sticking out of my bag and the one I still had in my hand and without saying a word, brought me here. Normally, I would’ve been stronger than her, but with a broken arm and a heavy bag with me, I didn’t have a chance,” I said, sighing.
“What do you think they’re going to do you?” the old woman asked, looking fearful for me.
“I have no idea,” I replied. I heard my voice shaking and became suddenly aware of how terrified I actually was. Just as the woman opened her mouth to say something more, the door opened. A man with salt and pepper hair and eyes so dark they were nearly black looked at me and said, “ Ms. Parker, it’s time for your surgery. Nurse, take her to the Operating Room.” He turned back to me and smiled, which sent a chill throughout my entire body. The nurse walked over to me and started to wheel my bed out of the room. As I was leaving, I turned back to look at the old woman one last time. She stared at me with sympathy in her eyes and mouthed the words, “I’m Sorry.”
The nurse took me to what I assumed to be the Operating Room and put a mask over my mouth and nose. A strong smelling gas flooded my nostrils and my vision blurred. As I drifted into unconsciousness, the last thing I saw was the doctor leaning over me with a scalpel in hand and that same unsettling smile on his face.
By Karson Hudson
