Current Story – The Hospital

Character – Ryworn

Role – Major

Stage Directions (Day 1) –

Explore the Hospital

I woke up to those words floating in front of my eyes, much like when my newly given name had first appeared.

The ceiling I was looking at was white, but covered in dirt and moss. As such, it looked a lot browner than it should have. The tiles on the walls were falling apart, with not a single one being completely intact, and the wall also seemed to have leakage issues, because all of the corners seemed damp. More importantly, there was absolutely no light other than the sunlight coming out of the half-barricaded window on the left wall.

I slowly sat up, and noticed that my body was covered in bandages. I did not feel any pain at all, but they were still there. I was guessing that I couldn’t remove those, because it would probably go against the story of me apparently being in a hospital.

The time I took to adapt to the situation was a bit surprising to me. It was probably because I was scared. I did not want to find out what would happen if I wasn’t perfect in doing everything that was asked of me at any given day. Looking back at those things I had told God earlier, I felt sick to my stomach. I did not want to die at any cost. Not when I had let Auria and Klaus down like that. They deserved more than someone who would just give up the very next day.

The hospital room was very rundown. There was absolutely no way that this was hygienic or safe for any kind of treatment, but that was something to be expected in a world like this. I looked all around me. There were seven more beds beside mine, and all of them carried patients. Five of them had their sheets pulled up over their heads, including the two who were directly next to me. Out of the other three, two were sleeping and one was busy reading some kind of book.

I called out to that one. He put his book down in anger and shouted at me, “Mind your own business and leave me alone!”

Wow. There was no need to be that rude. I sighed with annoyance and leaned on the bed. It was around a second or two later that I realized that he probably didn’t want to shout either. He didn’t really have a choice. I wondered what kind of instructions they had gotten. Also, unlike Auria’s information, I still hadn’t gotten any kind of clue as to what my personality or ideals were supposed to be. Maybe they would slowly reveal those to me.

Remembering the instructions for the day, I got out of bed and started walking around. My legs seemed a bit sore, but not too bad. I could handle walking around for a fair amount of time like this. And most probably, the soreness would be gone by the time I returned to this room anyways. I was supposed to explore the hospital, and I intended to do that job thoroughly.

The place wasn’t afraid to hide itself. It wasn’t even trying.

The building itself was deteriorating in every single way and place possible. Every room from the bathroom to the cafeteria, and even the corridors were covered with moss, dirt and debris. All of the windows had barricades put on them, which let in minimal sunlight. The entire hospital had a gloomy, dark atmosphere. The doctors walked around like kings. One or two pushed past me and did not even look back. A few shouted at me for getting in their way. One tried to hit me, but I managed to get away. The place was not fit to be called a hospital. And yet, it was filled to the brim with patients.

Every single room was full. There were no more beds available, and a lot of people were sleeping on the benches in the corridors, and being given whatever little treatment by the doctors right there. Family members slept on the floors, or hugged the walls. On top of that almost every patient looked like they were on the verge of death. No strength in their movements, barely able to speak, sunken eyes and constant groans of pain.

The cafeteria existed, but it might as well have not been there. The cooks probably didn’t get enough ingredients for the number of people they had to feed, so everyone who came there got a fixed bowl of whatever they had. Even then, that small bowl was not even completely filled. If someone got half a bowl, then it was their lucky day. I saw one person be swarmed by four different people because he got a little bit more than them. They forced him to ‘share’ it with the others, and just ran off with the bowl.

Very obviously, the patients were also being illegally used for experimentation by the doctors. They weren’t even trying to hide themselves. Some rooms did not have doors, and the doctors freely experimented on the patients, as others watched on with expressionless faces. I tried to step into one of these rooms, but was immediately kicked out by one of the doctors, who pushed me to the floor and then shouted at me to go back to my room.

I followed his orders, and did just that.

Back in my room, I lay on my bed, looking at the dirty roof.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

There was something wrong with me. Auria had said that they forced people to have different personalities, but I didn’t remember anything about there being an internal change that God made. People just needed to act like they were different, right? Because it did not feel like that to me.

Despite all of those dying patients, all of that injustice, the worst conditions I had seen a human being live in till now – I felt absolutely nothing at all.

Even now, the fact that they were from another world stayed in my mind. I was but a spectator here. These weren’t my people. And even though I knew I needed to get rid of those thoughts, I couldn’t. They stayed there, unmoving.

I could find no sympathy, no empathy for these people, no matter how hard I tried.

Even on the bed, I couldn’t rest.

That was when he spoke up, randomly, “Hey, what’s your name?”

The one on the bed to my left. He had had his sheets over him earlier, so I hadn’t seen him. Now, he was sitting up with a smile on his face.

His hair was short, coming down to the top of his neck, but pretty extravagantly styled on the top. I never knew much about hair, so I couldn’t really pin the name of it, but it was one that I had seen quite often in my world. Other than that, his face was slightly chubby, but just hanging on the edge of what made someone fat or fit.

“I’m Olbert.” He didn’t wait for me to answer his question.

“Uh…what was it again?” I scratched my head, and then the words appeared before my eyes, as if reading my thoughts. I looked back at him and answered, “I’m Ryworn.”

“Nice to meet you!” he said.

Did he have some kind of instructions to talk to me? Or was he just asked to talk to people in general? There was no way I could get to know the answer, but it did not hurt to think a bit before talking to people, considering the situation.

“Same.” I cautiously replied.

“Why are you in?” He asked and raised his own bandaged hand, “My hand was attacked by some wild beast. I was just roaming in the forest and it came and went out of nowhere. Did not even get to see what it was. Crazy!”

“Oh.”

“I totally could have fought it off, if I had the time. Or not. My father would kill me if I did that.” He did not even seem like he was talking to me in particular, “He is adamant about our family’s ‘no killing’ policy, yeah? No matter what happens, we must not take a life.”

“That’s…a nice thing to do.” I tried to reply, “Not killing is a pretty noble thing.”

“Mm hmm.” He nodded, “My great-great aunt was actually a serial killer. So, ever since then, we’ve tried not to associate our name with that kind of stuff.”

I kept nodding, as if anything he was saying had any relevance to me.

Was he just asked to share his history with people?

“What about you? Tell me your story! Give and take, you know.”

It made sense now. That’s what the plan was. To make me recount Auria, Klaus and Tyber’s story. God intended to hurt me directly by asking me to look back. But I didn’t mind. In fact, I had been planning on thinking about it just now anyways. To see that what it was about them, that had made me feel bad. How did they compare to the people I had seen here?

So, I told him. About how I was actually from another world, and how I had met those people. I skirted around the part of the wardlebeast, since that would probably get me killed really quick. I just made up a story of how the wardlebeast killed Auria and corrupted Klaus to the point of making him almost kill me. Then, the portal.

All of that, somehow, was a part of my character’s story. Because nothing happened to me.

“Wow, that’s wilder than the beast who attacked me.” Olbert started laughing.

I couldn’t, for some reason. Even now, with a fake story, I felt bad about what had happened to those three. Still, I couldn’t find how exactly they were different. It wasn’t like I had known them for a very long time. I wouldn’t have normally cared about people like them in my world, even if I had met them for longer.

“I didn’t know that wardlebeasts could actually kill.” He said, “Weird. I guess there’s still a lot that I need to learn.”

Surprisingly, he hadn’t even batted an eye about the fact that I was from another world. Maybe it was rare, but well-known?

“Are there a lot of people like me?”

“Who faced a killer wardlebeast? Not at all. As I said, it’s the first time I’ve heard of it.”

“No, not that.” I corrected him, “I mean – people from other worlds.”

“Ohh, yeah.” He nodded, “A lot. You’ll probably find one or two more around in this hospital. I wouldn’t recommend it, though. You see, I was a bit scared when you first told me you were from another world. Most people who are, are really rude and egoistic. Such bad influences which make you angry at them aren’t really beneficial to be around, especially considering my family and all, you know?”

“Uhh, sure.”

“Yup. I might kill them if I got angry, so I try to stay away from such people. But you’re cool, I think till now. Anyways, I need to go for a checkup in a while, so I’ll leave you to it. Nice to meet you, though, Ryworn.”

He got up from his bed and shook my hand. Then, he smiled and left the room.

“Yeah, Olbert.” I whispered, but he was already gone by then.

I went back out in the evening, but there wasn’t much more to see. The place was so rundown that even exploring it was the easiest thing in the world. Around thirty percent of the rooms were either locked behind jammed doors, or covered and made unusable by fallen rubble and debris.

Later that night, I came back to my room. Olbert wasn’t there, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to him again. I liked him a fair bit. He was pretty cheerful for someone who lived in this world. But then again, there was a huge chance he didn’t want to be. I wished there was a way I could talk to the real him. The real versions of all of these people.

But since there wasn’t anything I could do right then in particular, I went to sleep.

The next day, however, I woke up with a surprise.

Current Story – The Hospital

Character – Ryworn

Role – Major

Stage Directions (Day 2) –

Befriend Olbert

The story wanted me to talk to him once more. I had been a bit scared when I had started speaking about my real origins, but nothing had happened. It made sense now. Maybe Olbert’s goal yesterday had been to listen to my story. And today, I was supposed to work on becoming friends with him.

However, just because the story wanted something did not mean that it would allow me to get to that point easily.

The moment I woke up, Olbert’s bed was being moved. He was walking beside the bed, which was being lifted by two clerks. He looked at me and waved and smiled. I waved back, but with a much more serious expression.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“I’m being moved to the emergency ward. Apparently that beast might have been poisonous!” He replied, “So they need to take special care of me. See you later!”

And with that, he was gone from the room.

They had asked me to become friends with him, and now his life was apparently in more danger than before. Where exactly did they want to take this?