Hospital Induced Sickness
Chapter 1
Everything is white in hell.  


          The beeps of the machine above his head kept him from drifting off into sleep. He was almost thankful of it, for sleep had been nothing short of restless since he’d first found himself in this room three long days ago. The hours he’d been awake were almost at fuzzy and muddled as the ones where he’d been asleep. His sight was blurred, his senses were muddled, his memory foggy and his head pounded with a constant dull ache. Every few hours a blond man in a white lab coat would come into check on him and the girl in the bed a few feet way from his. He would ask him questions, like if he remembered anything. He remembered everything, although there where things he wished he didn’t. Things he didn’t understand. Things that he wasn’t even sure wee real. Things he seriously doubted were. But they still frightened him. The man had left the room, possibly for lunch hour, and the air was eerily quite. He turned his head to the side to look at his only companion.
         He could see her, but she couldn’t see him. The entire top of her face had been tightly wrapped in bandages and gauze. Her lips hardly opened when she breathed. He’d spent the last three days wondering who she was and where she could have come from and what possibly could have happened to her face to make her look the way she did. She’d never spoken to him before. He’d heard her cough, or moan in the nights. He’d heard her mumble in her sleep and he’d heard her muffled cries of confusion. He wondered how long she had been there. Had she been here longer then he had? How long had he been here before he had first opened his eyes? How long were they going to be held up in this room?
          “Where are we?” He asked her. Although he said it more to himself. When he had been asked what he remembered he hadn’t spoken. It was too strange to find words for. The last thing he remembered before he had opened his eyes to the fluorescent lights of the room was the rain. It had felt so nice and refreshing on his skin. His skin which opened up like a torn black garbage bag, spitting blood and bone fragments all over the asphalt. But he hadn’t felt any of that. He hadn’t feel his ribs crack. He hadn’t felt his arm rip from his body, flesh and veins, arteries and muscle tissue popping and stretching and tearing. He hadn’t felt Travis’s calloused hands on his face or Emma’s panicked shrieks coursing through his body as he lay in the crosswalk staring up into the black swirling storm clouds.
          The rain seemed to speed towards him in a tunnel effect, and although Travis begged him to stay conscious, it was all he could think about. How it spun toward him like hundreds of tiny bullets headed strait for the girl he’d seen on the dance floor. Her black hair pulled back in a thick ponytail, which bounced, like her breasts as she danced. The club lights hit her before flashing back and forth into darkness in tune with the electronic music and the drugs surging through his system. His drink was beginning to sweat as it heated up in his hand. And she flashed him a smile, with her hands on her stomach, caught mid dance. The lights flashed the bass pounded. Flash then darkness, flash then darkness. Everything seeming like a stop action film, the music thumping, her body moving like liquid then freezing like ice, an unexpected sound ripping through the hazy atmosphere, the dancing stops but the lights and the music doesn’t. Her body lurching backwards and something exploding out of the back of her head in slow motion. That’s when the panic started and things sped up to fast forward.  
          The rain on his face suddenly became the shattered pieces of her skull and the last thing he saw was the blue-gray of Travis’s eyes, which were coincidentally the same exact color as the storm clouds above his head.
          He remembered the first day he had sat at Travis’s lunch table in junior high school. He had been the new kid and Travis had been his first friend in a new town. They became close friends. They grew from boys to men together. Him and their friend Emma became his family, his brother and his sister. They were both a grade ahead of him and they would protect him. Going to high school four years later was scary, but he knew he would be safe by their sides. No one would bother him when the two toughest kids in the neighborhood were his best friends. A few years later Emma got pregnant and dropped out of her senior year of school. Her and Travis moved in together and Travis had to quit school as well to get a job to help Emma raise their child. When his family kicked him out, Travis and Emma opened their apartment to him and once again became his only family. But where were they now? In this room, in this bed with the beeps of machinery and the strange girl beside him he was alone, and there was no one here to protect him.  
          “I think were in hell.”
          He was shocked to hear her reply. Her voice was shaky and hoarse. He was surprised she could even speak, but she sounded so terrible that he wished she hadn’t.  “It feels like a dream but I can’t wake up. Were in hell, I know we are.”
          “Then who is that man? The one in the white coat who comes in to watch us.”
          “I have no idea… hey, what’s your name?” Her question caused a strange feeling to well up in his throat and he felt his mind draw a blank.
          “Sars... He muttered strangely. It felt wrong somehow. “What’s yours?”
          “Its Ecstasy.” she replied weakly. “My name is Ecstasy.”
          “Well, its nice to meet you, Ecstasy.” He stared at the ceiling.
          “Maybe under different circumstances it would have been.” There was silence for quite some time after that. The repetitive sound of her breathing hooked up and amplified by the machine connected to her throat caused drowsiness to overcome him and he drifted off into another strange stage of sleep. When he awoke next he was completely alone. The beeps of the bed were gone. The florescent lights were nowhere to be found and he was without Ecstasy’s company. His eyes slowly meandered across the room. His first observation was the bed he was in was larger and softer, more like a real mattress then a hospital bed. The walls were painted a soft light brown; the color of overly creamed coffee, the light was soft and yellow and came from a rounded desk lamp on the bedside table. The other thing that stood out at him the most was the man sitting next to him. He had blond hair and a young face; glasses perched on the bridge of his pointy nose. He was wearing a long white coat. His nametag read “Dr. Sutcher.”
          “Good morning, boy.” He smiled with what was recognizable as warmth. It made his face seem a friendly one. “Did you sleep well?” Sars had no idea how to respond to the doctor’s question. Besides of coarse, with a question of his own.
           “Where are we? What is this place?” he asked, sitting up and realizing for the first time he had both of his arms. This made him wonder if his memory in the rain was real or not. The doctor nodded.
          “This is the hospital. No fancy names here, just the Hospital. Now I understand you must have a lot of questions, Sars. But don’t worry, everything will be explained in time so you must promise to be patient.”
          “How do you know my name? Who are you anyways?”
          “My name is Sutcher. I know a lot about you, Sars, more then you’d expect. I’m the head doctor here at the hospital; it’s my job to know as much as I can about my patients so I can assist them to the best of my ability. I’m your friend.” His voice was so gentle that it made Sars feel comfortable. This was a man here to help him. This was a man he could trust… maybe. It was dangerous to trust someone right off the bat, more questions were needed. The most pressing of coarse was why he was here in the first place. What was going on?
          “What happened to me? I have strange memories and some of the things in my head feel fuzzy. Nothing feels right, everything’s upside down and inside out. I remember getting hit. I remember losing my arm, yet here it is…” He clenched and unclenched the fingers on his left hand to show the use of the limb. “I remember passing out in the street. It was raining hard. …Could that have been a dream, doctor?” Sutcher smiled that warm smile of his. Something in is eyes glinted and he placed his hand on Sars’s knee.
          “Nothing you’ve experienced is a dream, boy. It’s as real as that right arm of yours. Your memories of something’s might be a little fuzzy and certain thoughts may make you eel a bit strange, but don’t worry, its completely normal. Everything will make sense soon, don’t rush it. Your all right now, your safe here, I’ll take good care of you, but you need your rest first. Its late, you should get some sleep and I’ll send one of my nurses to wake you for breakfast. And here.” He handed him a small remote control with a large button in the middle. “If you need anything in the meantime you can use this to call me. I’m always available. Your questions will all be answered tomorrow morning at breakfast, alright?” The doctor got up and reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out along syringe and tapped the needle with his finger. “I just need to take a small sample of blood from you to make sure your responding to the medication correctly.” He pushed up the boys sleeve and Sars felt a small pinch and watched the needle fill up with a deep red liquid.
          “What medication?” He asked, watching the doctor pocket the hypodermic. “And what happened to the girl I was with?” Sutcher laughed warmly and made his way to the door.
          “Tomorrow my boy, get some rest.” And he shut the door. Sars stared at the space where the older man had been only seconds before he signed and looked down to his arm, rubbing where the blood had been taken. “Strange place this is…” he thought to himself before closing his eyes and once  more letting sleep take him.