I walked down the hospital hallway. The elevator was barred with bright yellow tape, laughing at me as I recognised them. Recognised where the word “RESTRICTED” curled around the poll in letters that almost dripped to the floor. As I watched the letters slipped off the tape and pooled around my bare feet.
I didn’t have time to be in shock. I didn’t know why, and at that point all I felt was unexplained panic. I turned around, sprinting to where I knew the stairs would be. The hospital was one I had been to so many times before. When I broke my arm, for endless hearing tests, for mothers with newborns.
I ran up the stairs, ignoring the signs that read “level 3” “level 4.” He had to be here. Why else would I be here? Who else? I peeked in every vacant room, dust dancing in the sunlight streaming from open windows. I kept moving, fear curling in my stomach the closer I got to my destination. Because I knew I was getting closer.
But unlike other dreams, I knew if I walked into his room. I knew he would die. Unlike others where I fought to save them, where I memorised every hitch, every trigger, every way to stop disaster. I couldn’t save this one. I didn’t have a plan; I didn’t have a hope. All I could do was run through one hallway to another as I searched. I didn’t fight to remember how I got there, or how many turns I had taken. Because it didn’t matter. I could run in the opposite direction and somehow I would still end up there. I wouldn’t wake up before, I couldn’t stop the tide that swept me towards him.
Each step I ran; each corner I turned I dreaded. I wore a dress he had said he liked. It changed each time. Sometimes it’s the short blue that hugged my body, it’s strange, raised pattern curious to touch. Other times it’s the white and purple that flew behind me as I ran, like a ribbon from a child’s hair.
I hit The Corridor. The Hallway. Vines bloomed blue flowers along the white walls, curling into spirals of deep greens and bright azure blue. They heralded my calling before I could turn around, blooms opening in record time to burst into flower. I stepped forward and small white flowers appeared like fairy lights around me, silent little nudges. I stepped back and they closed, as though my presence had been sustaining them.
“Is that you?” A voice called, “I can’t see you.”
I looked up as a door in the middle of the hall opened, swinging silently open to reveal the stark white room within a fog of grey. I ran my fingers through my hair, pulling it behind my ears in one movement. Leaning against the wall just before the wall of vines, I slowly descended to the floor, pulling my knees up to huddle there. I couldn’t go in there. I couldn’t let the plot unfold. I couldn’t.
But every time. When my knees are drawn up, arms intertwined around them I hear him cough. A sound that wracks through him like a bullet-train through a carwash. And I unfurl in panic to run into the room, reaching out for him. To touch him, to comfort him, to hold him. And see his deathly pale face, his skin loose and grey. His body frail.
The room is full of smoke, billowing out around me as though I was walking through a toxic cloud. I reached his bedside and knelt there, turning to watch the vines crawl along the edges of the room after me. He turned his head to smile at me, violently pulling himself upright to cough wretchedly into a cloth dotted crimson. He couldn’t stop the relentless coughing until I press my palm against his forehead, watching him fall back against the bed. This wasn’t romantic or touching or sweet. This was painful and full of terror as he weakly blinked up at me. As he searched for my hand and I gave it to him.
He shuddered for breath, clawing for it. He looked at me, within a room filled with smoke and I smiled, though I couldn’t catch the tear I lost. One tear. Only one.
And he closed his eyes.
And left me there. Alone.
Again.
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