Hospo;Jury

“Hurry!” I shouted, “he’s going fast!”  I yelled for the syringe. We were extracting the acidic fluids from our patient's lungs, but one of the physicians had a stroke during the procedure and pierced the patient's heart with a falling needle.

“Oh also grab me a new needle and some thre-” I didn't finish. The heart beat monitor went flat. I stood there and looked at my co-worker in utter disbelief. Someone started crying. Somebody else rang up the patient’s wife, while my other co-worker, Shelly, fell to her knees. I could hear another mumble the word “damnit”. I just stood there though. That was the first time I had ever lost a patient. I hadn’t felt this way since my older brother Kegan died 4 years ago. I don’t know if it’s grief, sorrow, disappointment, or what. In the room over they were working on the physician that had spazed.

“Fuck!” I heard. A glass jar shattered onto the floor, scaring the spazed physician.  The shock sent him into another stroke, and his heart beat monitor too, went flat. I just stood there, as if I were waiting for my mom to come home from work at 9 p.m. when I was 10. My eyes were blank, I failed to do my duty. When the commotion calmed down my grief turned to rage and I threw a chair across the room, shattering a mirror. Everyone jumped, they didn’t expect it. I'm not usually one to get mad. Everyone knows me as the guy that never gets angry, the guy that just prays and forgives, but Jesus wasn’t here today. My co-worker handed me my stress needoh. I took it, looked them in the eye, squished it, and the pale pink lotion inside flew everywhere.

I kicked my foot up, then slammed it down stomping. The bang caused a commotion, and the nurses and surgeons started arguing. The fuss gave me a headache. One male surgeon must’ve gotten really pissed, because he started tackling the nurse in front of him. The nurse shoved him off, grabbed a glass bottle from the desk trashcan, broke it and drove it into the surgeon's head like a shank. Another surgeon had a mechanical ring knife, which he extracted and used to slit the other surgeons through. Someone else drove a syringe into a nurse's eye, and before the nurse died he condensed the other nurse’s skull with the defibrillator. Another got strangled with a chain halter used on cows. I saw someone frantically call 911 from another room. When the police got here they immediately started shooting down everyone who had “weapons”. Out of the corner of my eye though I saw someone start running up the staircase. A cop followed after him. Curious, I decided to follow as well. By the time I got up there I saw the cop on his knees and a dying patient swan diving off the roof. I scrambled over to the edge of the building roof and looked down, kur-splat. A decapitated body laying smashed in the middle of the street. Dizzy, I almost faint, slipping off the edge of the building.

The cop notices and screams, “Net. Now. Pole, second floor. Hurry!” into his radio com. By some miracle they read it in time to shoot the net out, catching me and soothing my landing. The fuzz politely lifted me off the net and led me into the back of one of their police cars. They escorted me to the police station. They then led me into a lonely room. There was a small foldable white table, with a black chair, piece of paper, and a pen. On it were questions about what happened at the hospital, and I sat down, picked up the pencil, and answered the first question. Did you physically harm anybody?, no, I wrote. Question 2: when did your shift begin?, 7 p.m.

By the time I had finished the paper it was almost 11 o’clock. I stood up, grabbed the paper and headed for the door. It was locked. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a small button next to the smalled tainted glass window. It was yellow with a smiley face on it. I pressed it. The police then came and escorted me to the front desk, and I turned my paper in, like a 9 year old in 5th grade would.  They then escorted me to my own confinement cage of sorts. The room was all white, covered in padding, there was a bed and a functional toilet.

“This is where you’ll be staying for the next two nights or so,” the nice cop said.  “Thanks I guess,” I replied. I entered the room, examining possible activities. I decided to sit on the bed, the sheets were soft. I stared at the ceiling in deep thought. Will they ever let me go? Will they put other people in here with me? I don’t know, but I think I'm scared of people now though. There’s no clock in here, I thought. I started dozing off. The ceiling is spinning. I fell asleep.

When I woke up I had no way to tell what time it was, nor how long I was asleep for.

“Ahh!” I yelled. “Shit”. There was a cockroach in the bed. There was a big bang on the door. An FBI agent walked in, grabbed me by the fore arm, and dragged me to a big wooden room.

“This is your jury trial. You have the right to remain silent until spoken directly to” the agent said. He then unhanded me and sat me down at a small pedestal. The judge slammed the gavel on the table and spoke.

“Did you harm anybody?” asked the judge.

“No,” I said, as hardened as possible.

“Did you exert any violence or anger?” the judge then asks.

“Yes,” my answer changed.

“Did you witness the murder of your co-workers?” the judge now asks.

“Yes,” stayed the same.

“Well then that should conclude it, thank you for your honesty and cooperation,” the judge said firmly. The FBI agent then returned, reprimanded me, and returned me to my soft white cell. I went back in, and sat down. I grabbed a pen and started counting days on the wall. I got onto the bed laid down and went to sleep. I think days flew by while I was in there, it was so boring. One day a different FBI agent entered the room and reprimanded me. I was being re-excourted to the jury room. Was something wrong, I thought.

“We are going to release you soon, but we don’t think you’re ready for any interactions with others,” said the FBI agent.

“Then why am I being returned to the trial room?” I asked.

“Because we need to ask you some more questions,” he responded. Whatever I thought. It doesn’t matter what they ask me as long as my answers are real and innocent, and they’ll let me go. When I sat back down at the pedestal the Jury slammed the Gavel on the desk and yelled,

“What was your relationship with the slaughtered surgeons and nurses?”.

“Just co-worker,” I said affirmatively.

“Do you believe that it was you who started the man slaughter?” the Jury asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“How so?” the Jury then asks.

“I got mad,” I responded. “We lost a patient from a heart puncture wound and a physician from a stroke, I had never lost anyone at work before. I got pissed and I threw a chair across the room, and it shattered a mirror.”

“Do you believe in the saying that breaking a mirror is a sign of bad luck?” asked the Jury.

“Yes,” I said firmly. I believed in almost everything, I mean after all we were all trapped in this city of confinement because we’re polytheistic. The city is called Heterodox Initiate Seclusion, or HIS for short. If you get put in HIS, it’s because you're polytheistic. The government believes that if you worship any other divine entity other than god and Jesus, you're a danger to mankind and they put you here. They use polytheistic as a general term. If you believe two gods you're called a Bitheist, 3 gods you're a Tritheist, 4 you're an Ortheist, and 5 or more you're an Omneist. Personally, I’m an Omneist. I think there is a little bit of truth in all religions. The more gods you believe in, the more badly you’re treated. So Omneist are treated very poorly by say Monotheists. You can usually tell who's what by how they look. Since Omneist are treated so poorly we usually can’t afford a haircut, so we have long hair. Not me though, I cut my own hair. I have  short hair but long bangs, I have snake bite lip piercings, a nose ring, both eyebrows are pierced, and I have earrings. I have a scar over my right eye, which made me blind in that eye but I do alright.

“Alright,” said the jury. “We’ll get you responses as soon as possible.”

“Thank you,” I said to the Jury before getting picked up by the FBI agent and escorted to my room.

“We believe that you are not a danger but you’ll be spending a few more nights in here.” Before shutting the door he handed me a pencil, paper, paint brush, and a can of paint.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

“Well it seems quite boring in there,” said the agent. He smiled at me before shutting the door. I took the items and sat down on the floor. I started sketching a picture of a door on the paper, and imagined that it was the door I was gonna walk through once I get freed. I was thankful I was given the items, because  truth is, it was boring in here, and I was genuinely going insane. I opened the paint. But instead of painting the door I took the brush to the wall, and re-drew the door on the wall. When it was finished I surrounded it with numbers, tallys, and clock hands. It felt like freedom, I stood in front of it, closed my eyes, and imagined I was walking through it. When I snapped back into reality I was in a hospital. The same hospital I was working at yesterday when it all happened. But there was nobody there. When I went to walk I fell into a big black hole. That’s when I realized I wasn’t back in reality. I then tried to punch the wall. My fist went  straight through and I fell into a void of sorts. I landed onto my bed in my apartment. I heard a big thump from the kitchen, and when I went in there the stove was on and the floor was on fire. I grabbed a cup, put it under the sink and tossed the water onto the burning floor. It put about half of the fire out. I ran out of my apartment and grabbed the fire extinguisher, then I went back in and sprayed the floor with it, which finished off the fire. I went and sat on the couch.  Sweating, I wiped my hand across my forehead, covering my vision for a split second. When my hand moved from my vision I was somewhere else, in a pale forest. The trees were tall and dark, the grass was a grey color, and I couldn’t see anything. I tried to look around my surroundings but ended up tripping on a root and falling to the ground. My luck must’ve been marvelous because I fell onto a lantern. I turned it on and looked again. I heard a twig snap in the distance, so I pointed the lantern in that direction. There was a tall, black, mysterious figure just standing there. I took a step back, worried. The figure then took a step forward. I took a couple more steps back, then the figure took a few steps forward. Scared, I turned around and ran, and the figure followed. I don’t think I had ever ran faster in my life, but I think I ran too fast because I ended up tripping over another tree root. By the time I had fallen and caught myself the figure had already caught up to me. It reached a hand out and grabbed me by my face, swung me back, and went to slam me against a tree, but before I hit it I woke up.

I was laying on the floor when I awoke, and a bunch of guards were hovering over me.

“What the hell?” I said after I sat up. “What happened?”

“You had a seizure, sir,” the policeman replied. I guess I had a seizure and was going through past memories? Wait, no that can’t be right. I don’t remember a house fire, nor getting chased in a dark ass forest. Was it foresight? No. Seeing into the future? No. Real life foreshadowing? Maybe. I don’t know, maybe it was just the effects from the seizure, maybe. All I know is that I really, really need to get out of here, because it’s making me go crazy. Also, I feel like I'm getting watched from out in the hallway. I don’t know why but I feel like I'm being stalked. Who? I don’t know. I just have that feeling, like how a cat plays and toys with rats before killing and eating them. Like how a tiger waits and stalks its prey before pouncing. I just can’t shake the feeling.

“Sir, Sir!” the guard yelled.

“Huh,” I responded.

“You clocked back out there for a second.” Oh, I thought. Sometimes I just get really lost in thought. Wonder if they thought I was seizing again or something, though. I heard a knock on the door, and an FBI agent walked in, and squatted next  to me.

“After the seizure, we’re gonna have to make you stay here another night so we can examine you, in a way,” said the agent. “Don’t want you seizing again or anything.” Damn, were they gonna release me tonight? I wonder. As the men all walked out of the room I saw an unknown figure standing in the hallway in the shade from the light. Before I could get a good glimpse of him, though, he left with the other men. The man sent shivers down my spine. I shook the feeling off, sat in my bed, and dozed off. When I woke up I stood up and put my hand to the door mural on the wall. I closed my eyes, then got startled by the door opening.

“Let's go,” said the agent. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to the jury room. Rudley, he sat me at the pedestal. The jury slammed the gavel on the desk and shouted.

“Mr. Brandon Vesperine, you are hereby free from confinement, and are available to go home,” the Jury stated, immediately.

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