Afterlife Hospital

Chapter I - The reality of the situation is worse than you think

It's rare that prayers ever get answered. Some may attribute that to there being no God or higher power, however I happen to disagree. It's not that there is no God, but that God simply doesn't care for the mumblings of mere mortals who are way beneath him.

'But Erwin, how do you know that there even is a God?' you ask me with that whiny little voice of yours and your hands flailing in the air like you just don't- I mean.

Well good question, how do 'I', a mere mortal like everyone else, know that there is a God. Well, the answer to that question wanders outside the blood drenched halls of this literally God forsaken hospital. I could tell you that a few hours ago I didn't know that kind of abomination existed, but now I do.

Surely we can take a few more liberties with this exciting, new, scientific conundrum. If that monster exists, why not a God? and I'm not talking solely about the Christian God here, this quandary extends to all make-believe, voodoo ghosts that humanity has created in the past.

Personally I've prayed to God 42 times ever since I arrived here. I don't want the answer the universe's mystery, I just want to know where the hell I am. Knowing my luck this is actually hell, or worse, maybe this is Germany.

Anyway, not once has he answered his email, I can just imagine his inbox to say [Unread messages: 2 billion]. If he could just leave a phone number or something, I assume that heaven has a secure phone line, I mean it couldn't be lacking technologically compared to Earth right?

Now to get a little more serious, according to this freakish girl standing in front of me, this place is known as [Afterlife Hospital]. This place should win the annual international oxymoron competition for just that name alone, bonus points for the 'Janitor' that doesn't so much as clean as it really just seems to want to make more mess from my corpse.

No, but seriously.

"Am I dead?"

I unconsciously asked the girl like she could answer the questions that God himself didn't bother with. I don't even know why I asked her since out of three questions she answered 'I don't know' for two of them. That's a 66.6% chance of her answer being-

"I don't know."

She shakes her head once more.

Right, see?

I really don't want to see her shake her head anymore, I can see bits and pieces of flesh and blood dripping every time she does that. I'm grateful for her rescue but I'm very horrified by her appearance.

Obviously she isn't 'alive' in the traditional sense, but she also clearly has her cognitive capabilities, at least I assume, so she doesn't really seem like a zombie either.

I slowly edged the door open and peered out to see if the 'Janitor' has moved on with its life. Certainly it does appear that way from its lack of presence but I don't know how much I can trust blind observation, and I literally mean blind because I can't even see too far ahead.

So I'm stuck here with no clue as to where I am, I'm hungry and cold and freaked out and just generally not in a very pleasant state.

Well I'll at least get the basics out of the way.

"Could you tell me your name?"

"…"

She stares at me like I just ate a live bug in front of her. Screw that, I feel as though it would be more likely that she'd be the one to eat a live dog or cat or whatever I alluded to before.

Oh, right where are my manners? When you ask someone for their names, it's natural to give your name first. You're right, I was just distracted by all the blood and gore that I had almost forgotten my civil responsibilities to continued structural society.

Every society starts off with good manners, which is then proceeded by industrial revolution and finally, classism.

Heck, ironically there's probably less class division here, I mean the 'janitor' doesn't exactly seem like he'd care if you make 30k annually or make 8 digits; he'd eat you starting from the face then neatly leave your shoes and clothes behind with a 'thanks for the meal' card.

Getting back on track I should probably tell her my name. The way she's waiting eerily quietly for me to speak is a bit, how do I say, 'off'.

"I'm [Eric Hammerschmidt]. Probably, don't quote me on this even I don't have most of my memories. Now, and you are?"

"…"

She continues to stare at me with that repulsed expression. Oh wait that's just her face, so she's just staring at me with a blank look.

"Fine, I'll just call you Sadoko and be done with it."

Let's be honest here. who wouldn't put her at the top of the 'most likely candidate for the next star of the [Ring] franchise'. I mean god damn, just give her a T.V. and she'd burst out of it like a Mexican wrestler.

She nods as she accepts the name I've given her. She does understand the concept of parody right? No?

If you think I've been really sarcastic for the past few minutes or so, then you'd be right, because I'm trying to get my mind off the horrendous situation I'm in right now.

"Alright Sadoko, is there someone else who can explain the situation to us?"

"…"

I sighed at her non response.

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You know I'm still bleeding from the hands here, the holes she made on my palms exceed the average size of a quarter. I'm surprised I haven't flipped out already or fell unconscious from blood loss.

"… The doctor."

Suddenly she mentions a possible candidate for an information source.

"'The Doctor'?"

I parrot her words.

She nods a second time.

"Where can we find this person?"

She doesn't answer me verbally but starts to walk, guiding me to this person named 'the doctor'. Knowing my luck in this place the doctor is going to turn out to be some axe murderer wearing a lab coat and he just calls himself the 'doctor' because he thinks cutting up a man and performing precision surgery are the same thing.

"Wait a second."

I call out to her and she stops to look at me.

I'm not going there bare handed, that's just asking for more trouble. Yeah I know it's someone she mentioned and not some monstrous lunatic but can you really blame me for thinking that there are no differences between the two?

I look around the room to find any kind of weapon. Obviously this is just a hospital room so it would be weird if there were, but being the genius that I was I decided to unscrew the bed frames and take one of the timbers of the mattress support as a makeshift bludgeoning weapon.

I feel much safer now.

I don't know how good I was a baseball before I lost my memories but looking at the contours of my muscle structure I can definitely say with 89% certainty that I was some sort of major-leaguer. No doubt about it.

"Okay let's go."

We arrive at the ER and already I was getting some bad vibes from this place.

For starters the words 'The doctor is IN' were written in blood on the doors and there was a red cool aid that was seeping out from under the gaps of the doors.

I don't know much about surgical fields, or any sort of medical field for that matter but I'm pretty sure that you're not allowed to drain so much blood from the patients that it overflows over to the other room. I don't even think a human body can contain such an amount.

"Are you sure this is right place?"

I ask Sadoko.

She nods like it was the most obvious answer.

"Kyahh! No, please stop!"

Suddenly a high pitched scream of a woman comes from within the emergency room. Though I had reservations about walking into room that so obvious had 'danger' smothered all over it, acting on impulse I kicked the door in.

I mean to be honest the 'damsel-in-distress' trope is so overplayed and I was only perpetuating it by butting in but it couldn't be helped if it was already happening right?

I was ready to remove someone's head from their shoulders with this timber bat if I had too.

"Noo~ forgive me~"

A near seductive voice came crying in the room.

"Hehehe, not so fast toots, we haven't finished the surgery yet~ c'mere."

So being the knight-in-shining-armor that I so obviously was I tried to intervene with whatever horrible crimes were being played out in this sick twisted place.

"Stop right there criminal scum!"

I shouted heroically.

"Ah? Who's there?"

…

What I saw was nothing like what I imagined.

I thought some ugly beast of a doctor was performing some sick and twisted BDSM surgical play with a young patient or nurse but… well there was indeed an ugly beast in there.

And a doll.

The beast was a hulking figure, about 2 meters tall and had the width of an elephant. Okay maybe it wasn't that big but it was close.

It wore nothing but black leather belts and chains exposing much of its grotesque skin and innards through the various wounds. I couldn't distinguish between which orifices were natural formations and which were artificial renditions, they were just so disgusting that it made me revolt from the mere sight.

Just think of it as a fat, bloated Frankenstein's monster dressed in nothing but leather belts and chains. Also I think it had three eyes, breasts that stuck out of its chest only barely covered by the metallic chains.

The doll on the other hand was as big as my head, wore a white lab coat and held various tools that were extremely dangerous looking.

On its face was a white mask that made it seem like it did a nose dive right into the uncanny valley.

"Do you want to play a game?"

It asked me in an extremely gruff voice.

Do I want to-

"No. if I had to say I'm more of a science oriented person. I'm interested in more worldly things like testing the structural integrity of your head against a timber bat. I want to see how many times I can strike it before it detaches from those cotton shoulders."

Using the timber bat I struck its face as hard as I could making the doll's head detach from its body and bounce around the room.

"Ah! Doctor!"

Wait what?!

The ugly beast used the same voice of the young maiden.

No, what?!

This situation is more critical than I thought, I need to get the fuck out of here as soon as I can.