I’m going to be honest, I’ve woken up too many times in one day to be good for me.

“Wake up.” A voice above me says, gently stirring me. Guess I fell asleep. Again. I pry my eyelids open to find a nurse above me.

“Amaya Hussain, right?” says the nurse. I can only nod in response. Why am I so shy around these people?

Her smile is sickeningly sweet. Fucking hell, it’s too early in the morning for this.

Shit, it’s not even the morning.

“If you’d come with me to your bed.”

Lovely, I get a room with 7 other people. Just what I fucking needed after all this shit. I can’t even be asked to get up from this bed…

I follow her through the corridors to the lifts on the other side of the building, my shoes squeak with every step. Passing through the corridors, there's a ton of people. Why do so many people go to the hospital at random times? There’s a finite number of people in the town, yet it feels like half of them are crammed in here.

Love Luton.

As we keep walking through the confusingly similar corridors of the hospital (deja vu?!? wait no, it just happened when i came in), it starts to dawn on me that I might be here for a while.

A long while.

Fuck it, I don’t care anymore. At least I don't have to keep writing Macbeth essays in english every single fucking day for the tenth time in a row.

The nurse leads me into a surprisingly big lift, and gently presses the button to floor 4. The soft whir of the lift is strangely calming, with its monochrome consistency. Have you ever wondered how weird lifts are? You press a button and you start to rise or fall rapidly till you slowly stop at a different altitude. Imagine if people in the 1800s saw this, they’d think we were gods. Or maybe they’d hold us at the stakes, demanding we be burnt.

Who knows?

Once the doors finally open, I’m greeted with the lovely sight of densely packed walls littered with drawings, decorations and a fucking fish tank in the corner.

The rabbit ward.

Yeah, a slightly anti-climactic name, but it is what it is. More importantly, I’ve been here before. Y’know, I already hate being back.

Walking down the corridor, we take a right to go towards the beds. How do I still remember the layout? The dinner cart is still parked on the side of the hallway like I remember.

Shit, the dinner cart.

God, did I really sleep that long? Is it really like seven already?

I would ask the nurse, but keeping my informal vow of silence to her is the only thing entertaining me. Keeping the allure up, you know? On a serious note, I really don’t like talking to medical professionals. To them I’m just viewed as another patient, another slab of meat in their eyes. No point. We finally turn into the room with the beds after an awkward walk with some nurses with flickers of recognition in their faces when I walk past them. Half the beds are already taken, boys with their legs in metal cages and bandaged heads, girls curled up in their beds, some looking malnourished.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

This is the most stereotypical hospital room I’ve ever been in.

I continue scanning the beds, until-

“Ariq!” I shout, recognising him in the far bed. His dark curly hair and massive glasses make him stand out like a wolf in a herd of sheep.

“Aya?” he replies, getting up and shaking my hand. “Fuck did you do to get here, you crackhead?”

“Fainted,” I respond, the biggest grin on my face.

“That’s just lovely, isn’t it?”

“When did you get here? It’s only been like ten hours since I left school.”

“So basically, after you got kidnapped from geography, my asthma raped me and I got an ambulance here.”

“You good now?”

“I hope so.”

Trust Ariq to always be in the hospital, he misses three-quarters of the school year here.

“Ms Hussain, if you’d go to the empty bed in the corner.” The nurse interjects, ruining the moment. She points to the empty bed in the corner, right next to Ariq’s.

Absolutely great, maybe my time here will be bearable.

Shoving my bag under my bed, I find a couple pairs of clothes waiting for me. Guess the caretaker already came in to drop off some things. Speaking of such, aren’t parents or guardians supposed to be with us? Everyone except me and Ariq have their parents next to them, consoling them.

“Oi, where's your mum or dad?” I question Ariq. To be fair, I never know with him.

“Dad’s abroad working, mums taking care of siblings.” He says, “They got me some dead hospital worker that stays with me sometimes. I can’t lie, they’ll probably do the same thing to you.”

Just what I wanted, a random guy sleeping on the recliner on my left. Lovely. At least it’s not a carer; I wouldn’t want to put the pressure of taking care of me over the youngers on them. Grabbing the pair of pyjamas the carer left me, I head to the bathroom to change. Thankfully, it's literally like 2 feet outside the room. The only issue is that the nurses insist on coming with me since I'm “at risk” or something like that. As if I’d be able to hang myself in the 2 minutes it takes to piss or change. Thankfully, since I’m (usually) an expert at evading capture from medical professionals, I just slip by unnoticed.

As I close the bathroom door, it locks with a satisfying click, a more satisfying one than expected. Damn, am I really getting into that ASMR shit that Aleezeh swears by?

Peeling off my sweaty school clothes, I find that the carer left me my favourite pair of tattered black joggers and a lilac vest. A tank top in a stupidly cold May, just what I needed, though it is pretty nice to have it with me.

The change from a blazer to a light vest is quite stark, but the feeling of air on my arms is a refreshing change. I slink back into my room, stuff my clothes up against the backboard of the bed and try to get as comfortable as I can.

If I recall correctly, they should come in to give me a brief body inspection, and then ask if I’d be comfortable going naked for a full body inspection, which I obviously refuse. With all that teasing in school about my chest, I can’t bear the thought of anyone looking at my tits. Probably overreacting, but I don’t care. While I plug my charger into the wall to charge my phone, there’s a girl arguing with her mother in a separate bed.

“You fucking whore, we wouldn’t be here if you kept your damn mouth shut,” her mother says, an aggressive tone leaking into her voice. “I don’t want to spend any more time here with your fake disorders, stuck in the hospital. If you’re really an ‘anorexic’, whatever the fuck that is, that's on you. Tell them to discharge you by tomorrow or I’m leaving you here.” All her daughter does is whimper, with tears streaming down her face.

I already don’t want to listen to it anymore.

I can’t listen to it anymore.

I screw my eyes shut and squeeze a pillow over my ears to block out the sound. Why does humanity have to be like this? Maybe the kid from the care home was right, maybe the human race really is sad, or whatever he said.

I lay there waiting.

Only now do I realise how tired I am.

To be fair, I shouldn’t be surprised. Waking up thrice in one day, fucking passing out, I don’t have the energy for much more.

Yeah, I’ll go to sleep, even if I’m plagued by dreams. Even if it’s only around seven. Even if I have to wake up once again.

Maybe I won’t wake up.