I am running...running through the halls, the white walls, white floors blinding under the flourescent white lights. It is chasing me..the sound, it is echoing...it's a child. It is crying and it won't stop. I turn a corner and there they are...waiting for me.

I wake up strapped to a table. My arms and legs restrained like I am some kind of monster. What are these people doing to me? There is a doctor. At least I think he is a doctor. He is wearing a white coat and he is coming towards me with a huge needle full of something that he says will 'take the edge off.' I try to move, try to tell him no but he does it anyways..and I black out.

I wake up in darkness. Alone. There is no noise except the sound of the child and when I move I realize that I am no longer strapped to the bed. I get up and look out the window and it is silent, consuming, pitch dark and raining outside.
I walk out of my room and look both ways down the long white hallway. There is no one, nothing there. The nurse's station is empty, the examination rooms are empty and it is silent. I go towards the nurse's station. Maybe there will be a phone or a phonebook or something...anything that might give me an idea about where I am or what I am doing here. On the desk there is a still hot cup of coffee, the computer is on and displaying an array of numbers and abbreviations that mean nothing to me and a file with a picture of a man and his name, Roberts, Jacob M, on the top. Just before I can pick up the file, I hear the child again and I have to find it..It sounds like it is in agony...who would torture a child so much as to make it scream this way?

The lights flicker as I walk down the long corrider. I try to tell myself that it is just the weather fucking with the electricity. As I pass an exam room, I stop and look inside. The bed has blood on it. I walk in to get a closer look and as I scan the room, I notice signs all over of something gone awry..The blood on the bed, the doctor's lab coat hanging on the hook in the corner also has blood on it and..strange...I didn't notice the footprints leading from the room until just now.
I follow the footprints down the hallway and vaguely remember that the hallway wasn't this long before. The lights flicker again and when they come back on, the footprints have stopped. They lead right into a wall. I put my feet in the prints and begin to touch and push on the wall right in front of me but there is nothing there and it isn't possible for someone to just..walk through walls. I turn around and lean against the wall in frustration. What am I supposed to do? I am all alone in a hospital, I don't know where I am or why I am here, I can't even remember my own name. As I look down the corridor, I see a room that I didn't notice before, with a dim light showing through and soft music playing. I approach the room catiously because, unlike the rest of the hospital that is cold and hateful, this room feels warm and homely and it is almost frightening.
When I get to the door, I am shocked at how familiar the room seems. There is a dark red couch sitting by the wall facing a television that has some children's show on mute. There is a fireplace in the corner that is burning brightly and a rug on the floor that is several different shades of red and brown. The walls are the colour of brown sugar and there are pieces of art and family photos on the walls. In one of the photos, there is a man, handsome, brown hair that is almost shoulder length, green eyes and a warm smile. He looks well built in black pants and a dark red, long sleeved shirt. He has his arms around a small woman with long, black hair and striking eyes of an almost discernible colour. She is wearing a long, deep red dress made of what looks to be velvet that fits her small body beautifully and is a gorgeous contrast to her pale olive skin. In her arms is a baby. The baby is wearing a long white Christening gown and her beautiful face is looking up at her mother. You can see her long eyelashes against her pale skin. There is something almost haunting about the photograph and I think it is the familiarity of the scene, the faces.
I back away from the photograph and scan the others. More photos of the baby, a wedding photo and some others that look to just be family members or maybe friends and a marriage license with the names Jacob and Bella Roberts written on it in beautiful script writing. That name...it is the name that was on the file in the nurse's station..The man in the photo on the file looks so much unhealthier than the man in the photos here...I wonder what has happened to him.
I turn away from the wall to look at the rest of the room and notice a small white crib with a dark blue blanket in it, a small black pillow and a brown teddy bear.
There it is again...The crying. I lift the blanket out of the crip and underneath it is a knife covered with blood. I throw the blanket and jump back. My foot slips in something on the floor and I look down to see that there is more blood and when I turn around, the walls, the furniture, the photographs, all covered with blood and I hear a woman scream from somewhere down the hallway. I try to run out of the room but my shoes keep slipping in the blood all over the floor. When I finally get to the hallway, it has changed completely. It is now dark. Only a few of the flourescent lights are on now and the rest are flickering, casting a yellow glow over everything. They are buzzing, too and suddenly, thunder cracks and it makes me jump into the wall. The child is crying and every once in a while I can hear the woman scream. I try to follow the sounds but they seem to be coming from everywhere so I just keep moving forward into the darkened hallway. I pass another room and inside there is a woman sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth, holding her head and crying. I go in the room and stand behind her. She has long dark hair, like the woman in the picture. I put my hand on her shoulder to try to see if she is okay. She stops crying and slowly lifts her head. I notice there is blood all over her arms and chest. She begins to turn and face me and as soon as she looks up, she starts to scream and tell me to get away. She puts her hands over her face
"Don't hurt me anymore" she screams over and over.
"Please" she cries. I want to just get away from her instead of scare her more but I can't help but notice that her chest and stomach look like they have been ripped open. She is bleeding everywhere and her insides and outside are all meshed together. There is no way she should still be alive...I have to get her help.
I rip myself away from her screams and from gazing at her wounds and begin to run down the hallway calling for help. I pass empty room after empty room in the hospital, in the dim hallway and I don't see anyone until the child passes me. I almost ran right over her...She has a white nightgown on and she is carrying a doll. Her long dark hair comes down to the middle of her back and she keeps her head down the whole time she talks to me.
"I bet you don't know what my name is" Is the first thing she says to me. I look down at her and tell her that I have no idea what her name might be.
"What is your name?" She asks me.
"I don't...remember what my name is...What is your name?"
"Marie" she says.
"Well, Marie, do you know where there might be any adults around here? There is a woman that needs someone's help in one of those rooms down there"
"I haven't seen anyone in a long time. Not since my daddy went away."
"Well, where did your daddy go?"
"My daddy went to jail"
I was a little bit shocked at this but I thought 'what the hell' and asked her why.
"For killing me" she said, and she lifted her face to look at me.
Her eyes were white and her throat and neck had dark black and blue bruises all around it. There was blood dripping from her rmouth. Her head only stayed up long enough for me to look at her and then she collapsed onto the floor, letting out a cry as she fell. I kneeled over and tried to help her but she wasn't even breathing...I really had to find someone here that knew what the fuck was going on. I stood up and looked around for any sign of a person or a phone or anything. I turned back to where I was and looked to Marie but she was gone. There was no sign that she was ever even there. The blood that had pooled from her mouth was gone...Her little doll was gone.
"What the fuck is going on here?!"
I scream down the hallway. I feel like I am losing my mind! I start running. I run as fast and hard as I can. I pass more empty rooms, closed doors, The crying child gets louder and louder in my head and the woman, I can hear her screaming from her room at the other end of the hall. I am running...running through the halls, the white walls, white floors blinding under the flourescent white lights. It is chasing me..the sound, it is echoing...it's a child. It is crying and it won't stop. I turn a corner and there they are...waiting for me.
When I wake up, they are all standing around me. I can hear the child crying in the back of my head and I ask them what it is.
"Mr. Roberts, there is no child here." Doctor #1 says.
"Yes there is," I tell him, "she is down the hallway, she wasn't breathing when I found her..she said her father killed her. And the woman! There was a woman in another room. She needs help! Why are you all just standing there? People need your help!"
They are still just standing there, looking at me. Doctor #2 steps forward

"Mr. Roberts, I believe there is some confusion-"
I cut him off "Why are you calling me Mr.Roberts? Like...Jacob Roberts? I am not him, he is the man in the living room, the man with the beautiful wife and daughter in the photos. That isn't me. I don't even know who I am..."
"You are Mr. Jacob Roberts. You had a beautiful wife and daughter."
"Had? What the fuck do you mean 'had?' If I had a beautiful wife and daughter, I wouldn't be here. I would remember that, now wouldn't I? Which is why you all need to listen to me and find that woman and little girl. They are hurt. Why won't you people listen to me?!"
Doctor #2 approaches me and says
"We understand that this is hard for you. You have blocked out a lot of the incident and that is why you are here, in this hospital, but it is time for you to remember. It is time for you to remember because, Mr. Roberts, you are going to be facing some jail time."
"Jail time? What for? For trying to help people?" I was trying to jump out of the bed but I was restrained at the wrists and ankles.
"Mr. Roberts, you are responsible for the brutal murder of your wife, Bella and your daughter Marie."
"What? I did those things to them? But they were alive they were...they were talking to me, Marie, she was happy to see me, she was beautiful..and Bella, she was so scared of me... Oh God..How could I have done that?"
"Mr. Roberts, please calm down. Mr. Roberts, we are going to give you a shot to take the edge off, okay? Just relax..."
I try to fight them...but they do it anyway.
When I wake up, I am alone in the hospital except for the sound of a child crying...

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