Screams here, screams there, screams everywhere, the cries of pain are heard all over the place. The hospital suddenly turned into hell’s nest, and the halls fill with more and more patients.
There I was, right in front of the source sitting on my wheelchair, and for every inch I go near that room, the aroma gets thicker, but I keep pushing my wheelchair forward. Curiosity filled my mind. I wonder what could possibly be going on in the other side of those doors, it gets the best of me. Many patients keep coming out of it, all in different clothing, some are screaming in pain, some not.
Behind these door a stench lingers, an atmosphere of dreadful agony, just being near those doors is hard to breathe, but it only feeds into my curiosity. Curiosity that I could not stand anymore.
I open the doors, to get closer to these unfamiliar screams, curiosity getting the best of me.
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It takes Hanniel a couple of seconds to make sense of the chaos, even then many things make no sense to him. On one side of the large room he sees resting bodies and on the other, people crying, people screaming. He doesn’t yet understand what is happening but the word ‘chaos’ barely begins to explain it, only a single step to figuring out what is behind those covers.
The nurses rush around trying to help in any small way they could, their efforts like droplets of water thrown at the dessert. The doctors rushing the nurses, like buckets into the dunes. The patients rushing the doctors desperately to get the help they needed, begging for salvation, forcibly reaching out for a helping hand. Others were shell shocked, unaware of what was happening around them, simply staying still- clueless of their situation. Some rested their bodies on the walls giving the room a new red paintwork, some of them would never stand again.
Most patients could barely stand with their bandages- bandages painted in crimson dots, waiting for their turn to be taken care of, you could call them, impatient. Others sat on wheelchairs being moved around different places before leaving out the doors. Some laid on beds resting or being moved around as well, leaving through the door the same door. The door behind Han. Few others lay covered with covers covering the entire bed. These few beds in crimson dotted covers are one by one moved to a different section of the hospital, passing by that same door, behind Han.
A lady rushed through the entrance’s automatic doors, after a few exchanges with a nurse who tried to help, she was directed towards a bed where the nurse lifted the crimson cover with a will as hard as clay. The lady’s face contorted before falling to her knees, another scream filled the room, another scream among many. Few seconds after another rushed in, this time a man, and was directed towards another bed, another scream among many. Then in came a family, more screams among many. Then a couple towards a smaller cover, a set of-The screams didn’t get any quieter, but they weren’t the loudest to Han.
Corpses rested in those beds covered with covers, painted with crimson red spots. Hanniel doesn’t yet understand that, he feels something somewhat familiar yet different coming from those crimson doted covers. He feels something he had felt many times before from afar , it was the reason why he hated the hospital but he still didn’t know what it was, but coming here would help him understand.
The souls of those bodies were fading away slowly, like a fire slowly fading, turning the body into charcoal. In those cold crimson covers, the bodies slowly cried away their laments, burning. The corpses cry, yet everyone else remains unaware of the fact that-the screams of the people in the red crimson covers were the loudest in the room. No one was able to hear them- but Han.
Staying here became harder by the second for Hanniel, and each set of screams filling the room weighted on his shoulders more and more. He wanted to help, but he did not know how. It was getting impossible for him to bear, and each second stretched out into many.
Han began turning his wheelchair to leave, but he saw a familiar face from a distance. He got a glimpse of Dr.Park walking in from the automatic doors, the same one used by the people rushing in. Each patient he talked to was quickly and calmly analyzed by him outside before the nurses, doctors, and staff moved them in. Dr.Park was doing something Han wish he could do, he was helping.
Dr.Park was very prepared, or so it looked that way to others but what Hanniel saw in Dr.Park was something beyond his outside charade. Han got a glimpse of something within Dr.Park not shown to anyone else, and it revealed itself to Han, it was the fear that laid hidden deep inside of Dr.Park, and the strong control he had for it to not be shown. To Hanniel the mask was like a thin see through wall- it was as clear as day, his emotion’s could hide.
A stinging pain in his chest wakes him up from his thoughts, he had been here far too long. He pushes the wheelchair towards the door again so he could leave. But the room suddenly became quiet, the screams of terror never stopped, rather, his focus had locked in onto something else. It was something beyond touching, something beyond seeing, beyond hearing, tasting or smelling. Something far different, but not unfamiliar. This one feeling is something he has been dealing with since waking up. Han had been trying to control it and had been successful, yet it was now rising up again, this felt like a test.
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Han closed his eyes and his vision turned dark for a second before the lights with different colors had begun to rise from all over the darkness. replacing the people surrounding Han. The fire’s light kept the darkness at bay, and a form of warmth showered him. Few of the colors were moving around- gliding harmoniously. Other deep-dark colors rushed around-rushing chaotically. The few others were faint small lights-fading.
But across the room, a golden light remained- unshaken by the strong winds pushing it around, the cold winds wanting to extinguish the golden light- mercilessly. The light fought them, and its flames were thrown around frantically, but unwilling to fade, the light hung on. Like a moth to the light Hanniel’s curiosity guided him to the fire. Han moved his wheelchair towards the flaming blaze, his eyes still closed. Han maneuvered his wheelchair through the waves of colors. None paying attention to him, only a single person is.
With the light right in front of him Hanniel opened his eyes and he saw her-a little girl, resting on her mother’s restless arms, with no covers. The little girl was small and pale, her eyes half closed, she remained as still as ice while her mother embraced her. No doctors were helping the mother nor the kid, no doctors could help her anymore. The mother stared at the ceiling not letting go of the little girl, arms shaking. A part of her visibly lifeless, her heart still beating but her mind no longer thinking.
Hanniel stretched out his hand to reach hers, in hopes to feel the warmth of the little girl’s strong determination, but the body was cold. Han was confused, and some time passed before someone’s grasp moved Han’s hand, it was the masked man.
Dr.Park noticed Hanniel’s piercing glare from the opposite side of the room, and was just now able to approach him. Dr.Park approached the little girl and called a nurse with a single hand movement and slowly, Dr.Park reached to get the little girl’s pulse, each fraction of a second a heavy weight added on Dr.Park’s chest, each fraction of a second- a crack on his mask. The more he looked at the little girl, the more his face lost emotion and when the nurse got there Dr.Park softly let go of the little girl’s wrist.
“Please bring a clean set of white covers”, he looked at his watch and wrote down the time on his clipboard.
Dr.Park told Han to give him some space but Han wasn’t listening, he was looking up to the lady- no, the mother holding the little girl. The face of the mother twists at the sight of the white cover on the approaching nurse’s hands. From lifeless to distress her face went through changes slowly. After facing the reality which she had to accept, tears start crawling their way out of her eyes, her screams begin-screams more vivid, wild and primal from any of the ones around. The lady holds onto the girl’s unresponsive body ever more tightly than before, her cries horrifying- twisting the atmosphere, further filling the room with more despair. Every patient’s inner mourning was weak to such scream, like a domino effect, the few shell choked patients who wondered around finally come to their senses. With her scream, many others fallowed. Every patient not in covers began crying and screaming again after being reminded of what it was they had lost, their screams still a fraction of what Han could see.
Han was beginning to understand, beginning to see, beginning to feel, beginning to know.
After many minutes the mother’s grip over the girl’s body loosened, Dr.Park grabbed the bed and laid the little girl on it, and moved the bed to the corner of the room with many covered beds. Dr.Park covers the little girl with the white cover where the crimson dots one by one began to appear. Next to him comes the mother, she stares into the bed not knowing what to do. She covers her face with her bloody hands, and keeps crying now silently on the chair next to the bed. Hanniel remains sitting in his wheelchair on the opposite side of the bed.
Dr.Park was about to walk away ,about to delegate the duty to another but he needed to first get Hanniel out of this place. He needed to call a nurse to get Hanniel out of here to his room. Dr.Park grabbed onto Han’s wheelchair handles, but then-
The loud cries of someone screaming in anger is heard by the door, a man forcing himself through some nurses who try to tell him he couldn’t enter, it was an officer wearing his uniform. Dr.Park changes his gaze to the lady who’s sobbing stopped, she froze like a rock- her eyes showing fear, another distress yet again, reliving that moment- yet again.
When she looks up, her eyes lock with the officer’s and he calms down-partially. Dr.Park approached and let the man through after handing him his firearm. The man runs next to the mother and looks her over, making sure she is well, his relief was visual and as he is about to ask a question he after he stops, frozen- looks at her in the eyes and he sees her, only then did he turn his gaze to the bed she rested her hand on. The first thing he sees are the crimson dotted covers and stumbles, almost falling on the bed, his knees weak, his arms shacking, his fingers trembling, the previous tears of joy and hope, now tears of pain and despair. He sees the bed’s tag with a name his surname written on it, along with a date and time.
The daughter of the man lays on the bed with the crimson dotted covers, among the other beds covered with crimson dots. The man’s legs break under the pressure and turn into twigs, not able to stand the weight. The man cracks, the man breaks- and he grabs onto the bloodied blanket sobbing while on his knees , and there he screamed-
“WHY IS IT MY DAUGHTER THAT DIED?, WHY IS MY DAUGHTER HERE MAY!, WHY IS MY DAUGHTER IN THESE RED COVERS?”, the lady could only cry in pain next to the man kneeling, she had never seen him like this before, his words stabbing into her heart, the image of her husband’s broken face a burned in her mind.
After witnessing all of this Han reaches out onto where the forehead of the girl is bellow the blankets. His hand falls on the bed’s cover its texture one he might never forget, the head of the girl is directly bellow where his hand rests. Hanniel closes his eyes and seconds pass a portion of the flame flow into him from his palm lightly burning him, tears began forming on his face.
With every passing moment the flames from the girl in the red cover becomes stronger, becoming almost overwhelming, his body was burning, absorbing Hanniel from his hand.
The fire had reached Hanniel’s breaking point, he let go and opened his eyes, and there he saw her, a light of fire blazing in gold, it was the little girl. Han saw her, with his own eyes, as the flames in the shape of the little girl hugged her parents one last time, before burning away-slowly extinguishing, into nothing. Hanniel moves his gaze towards the girl under the covers- but he feels nothing, he closes his eyes- but he sees nothing. There on the bed laid nothing, only a bed with red dotted covers, that is when Hanniel finally understood.
Han stands and moves his gaze to the entirety of the room. Dr.Park is by the side of the father who laid in sorrow. But Hanniel’s gaze keeps moving, reaching the other crimson dotted covers covered beds and there he saw-nothing.
His gaze moves towards the parents of the little girl who were on their knees by the bed crying now in sorrow. Hanniel’s face twisted the same as his emotions. There laid soulless covers and like puzzle pieces coming together he remembered what it means to die.
The thought of it had never passed by his mind ever before, a person who once felt happy, joyful, hopeful- is no longer here. The people who laid in those red dotted covered beds are gone forever. The coldness of the room had begun to freeze Hanniel, creeping in, begging with a chill of sweat down his spine. The lack of heat from the corpses start to pierce Han like needles.
Knowing he stands in a room with so many covers now gives context to his constant feeling of dread towards this room. His stomach builds up like a knot. Hanniel looks at Dr.Park one last time, he was yelling at a group of nurses, all of them miserably tired. As he looks around again one last time, he sees another covered bed, red dots began to appear.
Hanniel can no longer stand the feeling and runs toward the automatic doors, running away from the cold, running away from the beds, running away from the red dotted covers.