Have you ever woken up and felt like you were dead? That’s how he felt as he opened his eyes. His head was throbbing intensely, yet the pain felt like a dull ache, as though it was coming from somewhere outside his body. It was like if you are reliving a nightmare when everything feels real, but upon waking up, you realize it was just a bad dream. Still, the afterthoughts haunt you throughout the day, keeping that unnerving feeling of what if, with just a tiny possibility, that dream means something. And you keep speculating whether that dream was a premonition or a trick of your exhausted mind. Until you eventually forget about it, never bringing it up again.

It was cold. At least, that was his impression. He couldn't quite tell for sure, as he was judging by the cold, blue light reflecting off the shiny metal surfaces of the furniture around and the yellow brick wall, which gave the room a greenish hue. He had no idea where he was or why he was here. Indeed, he had no recollection of when he went to sleep or lost his consciousness some other way. His memory was so vague that he couldn't remember a thing. Well, that was not entirely true. He remembered his name – it was Mioray – and that he was twenty years old, living with his parents and studying history at the university. What he couldn't recall was what day it was or what he had been doing before ending up in this place, wherever this was.

Mioray was lying on a metal table in the center of the room, covered by white sheets. Slowly, he sat up and looked around. Similar tables stood on both sides of the one Mioray sat on. No one else was there, just him alone. Strangely, it felt like he had seen this room before, or a version of it, but not with his own eyes. Perhaps in movies or in video games? It was one of these places that you would recognize instantly, even if you have never been there before. A shiver of anxiety ran down his spine, accompanied by unsettling cold on the fingertips.

Lamps hung from the ceiling like chunks of monolith, dimmed for now, though there was no doubt they could blaze bright enough to illuminate every detail of the objects lying on the tables, provided there were some. Right now, only Mioray occupied one of the tables, the others were empty. At the head of each table there was a sink with a showerhead, and nearby, scales and a tray on wheels with various tools. One wall of the room held a set of drawers, all hermetically sealed. There were at least a dozen, maybe more. Instinctively, Mioray knew what was supposed to be inside. He hoped that he was mistaken, and that all drawers were empty instead.

His breathing quickened. Anxiety surged through him, and the throbbing in his head intensified. At least, he thought it was pain – his consciousness was slipping, and his vision began to darken at the edges. He had to hold himself together. If he didn’t, he would disappear. A voice inside his head warned him: if you lose yourself, there will be no turning back.

Desperately, Mioray brought his hands to his face.

But there was only one hand. Mioray was covering only half his face, despite the fact that he definitely should have raised both arms, he was sure of it. And yet, his left eye was still able to see the room clearly, with nothing covering it.

His left arm was gone. There was nothing but emptiness up to the elbow, where his skin had been sewn together. His right arm, too, bore stitches at the elbow, as if it had once been severed and reattached. Mioray threw off the sheets covering him, and found himself completely naked. His knees were similarly stitched like his right arm, and when he touched his throat, he felt the rough crossing of threads there as well. And there, tied to his toe on the right leg, was a cardboard tag with some writing on it. Like he was a corpse or something.

At that moment, he screamed.

I’m missing my arm! Why am I missing my arm?! This can’t be real! Am I still in the nightmare?!

He felt dizzy, which added to the effect of everything being fake. It would be so easy to write off this as a bad dream and be done with it. Unfortunately, Mioray realized that he was lucid. No, it was not a bad dream. He understood it was not, and it only amplified the terror in his mind.

He would have soon drowned in the darkness of the horror in front of him, but the voice inside his head ordered Mioray to calm down. It reminded him how thin the line was between sanity and madness, especially now, in his current state. That confident voice eased Mioray’s panic attack, but only a little. What was this state he was currently in? What did it mean? And most importantly, how had he ended up alive – in a morgue?

He tried to stand, but whether from weakness, clumsiness, or the absence of his left arm, Mioray lost his balance and tumbled off the table, knocking over the tray beside him. The tray crashed to the floor with a loud clatter. The tools – scissors, scalpels, saws and hammers – scattered in every direction. The harsh, metallic noise assaulted Mioray’s ears. Not as much physically as mentally.

After all his screaming and the commotion, someone was bound to notice there was a living soul in the morgue. Mioray imagined someone hearing the ruckus and rushing in to investigate. The thought struck him as grimly ironic: a naked man, missing an arm, sprawled helplessly on the floor. And that man was supposed to be dead. Why else would that man, known as Mioray, be here? Unless... unless it was someone’s twisted prank.

This is some sort of sick joke, Mioray thought while lying on the floor. This can’t be happening. I don’t know how they did it, but this is not real. Stitches, missing arm… Oh god, what if somebody cut off my arm for the sake of a joke?!

These and other thoughts invaded Mioray’s mind as he tried to make sense of his situation. A few minutes passed, but no one came to check on him. As he had speculated earlier, it could be a prank, but that seemed unlikely. He had no connections in any hospital, if that’s even where he was, and he didn’t have friends who worked in one. Besides, who would cut off an arm just for a prank?! Only a maniac or a crazy person. And he didn’t think he knew anyone like that.

Maybe it was some sort of mistake? Perhaps he’d been in a terrible accident and lost his arm, and the paramedics at the scene had mistaken him for dead. That seemed plausible. That would explain why Mioray couldn’t remember a damn thing. He didn’t even know if it was day or night outside. As far as Mioray was concerned, he was walking around on the streets, minding his own business, when, out of nowhere, he was knocked unconscious. Hit by a car, for example.

Or maybe he was actually dead? Maybe the zombie apocalypse had finally begun, and that’s why no one had heard him scream a few minutes ago. Everyone had turned into mindless living corpses, hunting for fresh brains, while Mioray was the only one who had retained his sanity, trapped forever between life and death. Mioray shook his head, dismissing the thought as absurd. It was absurd, wasn’t it?

Mioray tore off the tag on his toe and threw it away without reading it. He tried to stand again, this time leaning on the edge of the table. Slowly, he managed to get up, but his legs felt... strange. Actually, his entire body felt strange. For one, he couldn’t really sense pain. He knew it was there – in his head, in his stitched-up parts, in his hip where he had fallen – but he couldn’t feel it in the normal way. It was just... there. Maybe he was under the influence of strong painkillers. His whole body felt numb, like it didn’t quite belong to him. He could control it, sure, but it felt more like he was controlling it from the outside, like a puppeteer moving strings. A puppeteer who could somehow project sensations onto the puppet itself, without being disturbed by them.

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He didn’t feel weak, but his legs were stiff and unresponsive, as though he had to learn to use them all over again. The same went for his arms. My remaining arm, he corrected himself. Strangely, Mioray was already growing accustomed to the fact that he was missing one. Shouldn’t he continue panicking? He didn’t. He just accepted it. I bet these painkillers are really good, Mioray thought.

He was more concerned about the fact that he was standing there completely naked. The last thing he wanted was for someone to find him like this. Mioray scanned the room for clothes, but there was nothing in sight. He tried to recall what he had been wearing before his memory went blank, but nothing came to mind. His gaze fell on the white sheets lying beside him, the ones that had covered him while he was asleep. Mioray shrugged. Why not? It was better than nothing. Wrapping the sheets around himself in a makeshift toga, Mioray tossed the fabric over his left shoulder. Now, he looked like an ancient philosopher from a civilization long gone, albeit one missing an arm. It probably looked comical, more so than being completely naked. But it was something.

So, from how it seemed, his body was the only one in the room, or at least he couldn’t see any others around. Mioray was against investigating the drawers in the wall. For now, he decided that he was surely in the morgue, and in Reques City, the morgue was located in the Lilies Hospital. There was a chance he might encounter staff in the hallway outside. He tried the door, relieved to find it unlocked.

The hallway outside was long and brightly lit by overhead lamps. There were no windows, no way to tell what might be outside. The stark, sterile corridor made Mioray feel like he was aboard a spaceship, drifting through the vast emptiness of space. It reminded him of a book he’d read recently, where a man woke up from a medically induced coma after three or four years, the lone survivor on a spaceship, with his crewmates long dead and mummified. But there were no machines tending to him here, so this probably wasn’t the case.

At the far end of the hallway was an elevator. Mioray began walking toward it, passing intersecting corridors and doorways along the way. Some doors were closed, some open, but he didn’t bother to look inside. Why would he? If he explored every room or turned down each corridor, he’d only get lost. The elevator was his best option. Once inside, he could find out what floor he was on, and the route from the elevator to the exit would usually be straightforward. At least, he hoped so.

Once by the elevator doors, Mioray pressed the button to call it. Nothing happened. He pressed it again, hoping for a different outcome, but the result was the same. His eyes drifted to the card reader next to the button. If it wasn’t just for decoration, it meant that a card had to be scanned to access the elevator. Mioray didn’t have one and had no idea where to get it. That aside, what was the point of installing a card reader here? Sure, in a publicly accessible area restricting access would be logical, but this part of the hospital didn’t seem open to just anyone. So why the extra security? Why limit who could leave? It wasn’t like people were trying to escape from the morgue, right?

Then again, technically, that was exactly what Mioray was trying to do. But he wasn’t a dead corpse trying to escape. He was very much alive. He just wanted to get home. His parents were probably worried sick, not knowing where Mioray was. From his point of view, it had only been a few hours since he last saw them, but that could be wrong. How long had he been unconscious? Was it just a few hours? Or had several days already passed?

He was trapped, with no idea how long he had been here or how long he’d stay. Mioray needed to find someone, anyone, and ask them to let him out. But what if they asked him how he got here? He’d answer truthfully – he didn’t know. His recent memories were still a fog.

Anyways, the elevator was a dead end, and Mioray hadn’t seen any maps or exit signs to help guide him. He retraced his steps, this time checking every door and hallway he passed. None of the rooms he entered had windows. This part of the hospital felt completely abandoned, or maybe the staff had already realized Mioray was awake and were hiding. Or, if he entertained the idea of this being some elaborate prank, perhaps they were waiting for the perfect moment to jump out from around a corner, set off confetti firecrackers in his face, and yell "Surprise!" While they were at it, they could sew his arm back on too. He wouldn’t mind.

But, really, why would anyone leave me here all alone? he thought. You’d think the doctors are skilled enough to determine whether someone is dead or not. I mean, I am alive, right? I think, therefore I am.

But then his fingers grazed his throat again, feeling the threads sewn into his skin. The same went for his right arm, both legs, and even the stump where his left arm should have been. He’d heard stories of limbs being reattached in time, still fully functional after surgery. But the head? That was new. At least, it was the first he’d ever heard of it.

Thankfully, when Mioray checked yet another room, which, by the look of it, was a storage room, he finally saw another living person, a woman. From the green uniform, he guessed she was a nurse. She had her back to him, sitting on all fours and rummaging through supplies on a shelf, completely unaware of his approach.

He had never been so happy to see another human being. Of course, Mioray hadn’t ruled out the wild possibility that she could still be a zombie, and when he called out to her, she’d turn with bloody, decayed features, letting out a sinister growl. Come to think of it, she was already making sounds suspiciously similar to the growls zombies make in movies.

In those movies, this would be the classic moment when one of the characters, usually not the brightest, lets their guard down and gets too close to a zombie, only to be bitten or worse, devoured. Now, Mioray found himself in the shoes of that exact character. He hesitated. What a shame he hadn’t grabbed one of those scalpels from the tray back in the morgue. Maybe it wasn’t too late to go back and arm himself, just in case? 

Mioray sighed. As if zombies could be more real than the idea of him waking up on a spaceship. There was only one way to find out.

“Excuse me, can you help me, please?” Mioray asked. His voice was weak, the words dragging lazily from his mouth as if they were stuck, clinging to the walls of his throat.

“Sorry, no, I’m busy. Try asking another nurse.”

So much for the zombie apocalypse. Mioray felt relieved. Now he was certain this woman was just a normal human being, not someone about to try and eat his brain. He just had to figure out how to persuade her to help him, especially since she hadn’t even turned to look at him when she responded.

Her voice was weary, like she was deep into the final hours of a grueling shift. Maybe she hadn’t even realized that there shouldn’t be anyone wandering around here, except other staff. He remembered how his father, a firefighter, used to work 24-hour shifts. He would sometimes manage a nap at the station, but there were nights when fires kept him from sleeping at all. When he came home, exhausted, the last thing he wanted was to be bothered, even by Mioray and his mom. All he wanted was sleep. Maybe this nurse was in the same state.

“Do you know where I can find another nurse?”

“Do I seem clairvoyant to you, to know where other people hang out? Just look for one, for holy Mirabelle’s sake!”

But Mioray still needed help, and he didn’t know where to find another nurse. He already checked plenty of rooms and this was the only nurse he found so far. He cleared his throat, trying to speak more clearly.

“I’m lost. I don’t know where to go. I woke up not long ago, and I have no idea where I am. Actually, I’m not sure that I’m supposed to be here at all.”

The nurse froze. She seemed to realize that something was very wrong. He, whoever he was, shouldn’t be here. Or if he was supposed to be here, he should probably be dead or something. Slowly, she turned toward him. As she did, her eyes grew wider, filling with terror. What was she seeing in him? Could it be that, instead, Mioray looked like a zombie to her? Some kind of ancient, undead philosopher?

The next second, she screamed. A sound so piercing and shrill that it felt like it echoed through the entire hospital. Everyone must have heard it: the living, the comatose, and even the dead.