little rooster, little hen

darkness is what greets him when he blinks open his eyes.

where is he? 

there are no lights, wherever this is. 

he feels the all-too-familiar sheets beneath him and the all-too-familiar attachments in his arms. there’s no tube stuck down his throat this time around, thank god. he hears the steady beep beep beside him.

he’s in a hospital—but how did he get here? 

the headrest of the hospital bed he’s on is elevated slightly. the all-too-familiar hospital gown, cold and thin, is irritating against his skin. he can feel the burn of the stitches all over his shoulders but he doesn’t quite recall what happened. he lolls his head to each side, slowly, as to not cause himself any more pain than usual. 

by now, his eyes have adjusted to the darkness. beyond the bed guards on his right, there’s an IV stand with two bags of clear liquid hanging down. the heart monitor he’s been hearing is there too, attached to the wall; now that he sees it, he feels the familiar electrode attached to his chest. on his right is a small bedside table. a faux plant sits on it; the only real pop of color in the otherwise too-white, too-clean room. farther to his left, he notices the blackout roller shades closed over the windows; that certainly explains the darkness. the rest of the walls around him are drywall; painted white, of course. the one and only chair over there is facing his bed, empty. 

there’s a door leading out to the hallway. it’s closed completely.

he’s more awake now, but his muscles feel all achy in a disconcerting way. he makes out a faint humming noise that seems to come from every direction all at once—probably the hospital’s ventilation system. 

it makes his head hurt so so much and it’s like someone is squeezing squeezing his head with both of their hands—

and then he’s blinking his eyes open again and his head spins and suddenly it doesn’t feel like the all-too-familiar hospital bed beneath him or the too-thin, too-cold hospital gown. suddenly, he’s in his usual clothes but they’re torn and stained with dried blood.

suddenly it’s dead silent.

there are lights that glare at him from above, the bright white fluorescent kind that he hates.

too bright too bright and it hurts it hurts his head, his mind—

he shuts his eyes tightly, so tightly to block it out block it out. 

vaguely, he recognizes the quiet sound of a door handle turning, slowly slowly, so so slowly—his thoughts are hurting—and the door to the hallway clicks open; it creaks lowly—like the muffled scream of someone in danger—

and then

he hears

a step—

and something cold touches his arm and his eyes shoot open to find out who’s grabbing him let him go let him go and he sees darkness again—

and a little girl who’s just…staring at him. 

her eyes are as wide as the black eyes of the little white teddy bear she’s holding…yeah, what the hell is that thing and who decided to make its eyes the size of dinner plates. he just wants to talk. 

it’s now that he registers the quickened beep beep of the heart monitor beside him; he should probably calm himself down before someone runs in thinking he’s dying or something. taking his unblinking and probably unnerving stare away from the girl, he glances around the hospital room; everything is as it should be, so why did he think…

god, this girl probably thinks he’s crazy. he settles his gaze on the girl beside him, still with a small, cold hand on his arm. what’s she doing in his room anyways? he thinks that maybe he recognizes her from somewhere, but he can’t really put his finger on it—no, he knows her. he knows her, but from where? why? 

he’s just about to ask for her name when he coughs around the tube in his throat, when did that get there because he swore he didn’t have one in there earlier and—

then he blinks and he’s standing in the middle of the hospital room with the bright white lights. he’s bleeding, but from where exactly he doesn’t know. he feels like he’s dripping dripping in blood; maybe it’s because he ripped out all the wires stuck in him and tore the tube from his throat.

all he knows is that he will not be taken again; he’s not some experiment for them to keep finding and taking and testing. after all of this is over, he’ll go live in peace in some house hidden away on the countryside with his—

click click; he’s running and slamming his shoulder into the door of his hospital room and it opens with a BANG but it doesn’t open all the way; it hits something outside his room, but he can’t tell what it is because all he sees is darkness—why are there no lights where are the lights—he manages to take cautious, quiet steps into what he thinks is the middle of the hallway, and then he’s seeing rows and rows of gurneys pressed against the walls, lining both sides of the hallway for as far as he can see, which really isn’t all that far. there are people lying there, or what he thinks are people. they’re covered head to toe in thin white cloths; he can’t see any facial features but for some reason, he knows that they’re all smiling.

and then heeled shoes click click against the tile floors and something flickers in the corner of his eyes. he turns to look but it’s all pitch black; there’s not even the door he came from—

and then he feels a cold breath on his neck but that’s not possible not possible because he didn’t hear the click click of heels but for some reason it’s—

behind him—

he feels like he’s just been stabbed in the chest but when he looks down all he sees is a little white teddy bear sitting there innocently with its huge eyes staring up at him. it hurts when he breathes in too deeply, with too much of his chest and not his diaphragm. 

the little girl is gone, she’s gone she’s gone. he needs to find her; she has all the answers that he’s desperate for, like where is he who is she who is she—and then he’s sitting up on his hospital bed, noting that the all-too-familiar hospital gown is itching at his skin again. 

the teddy bear bounces slightly as it hits the ground. 

he needs to leave, needs to find her find her, and so he swings his legs over the right side of the bed, taking only a moment to blink out the black spots that flicker in his eyes. for what seems like the second time in the same hour, he’s ripping out his wires and thankfully there’s no tube down his throat. he grabs the IV stand; it has wheels; and then he’s standing, walking, making his way towards the door. 

he doesn’t know what possesses him to look over his shoulder but he’s glad he did because he sees a black figure in the heart monitor, and it’s only then that he notices that there’s no longer a beep beep in the room; the electrode is still on his chest—what happened what is this why why—

he needs to leave needs to leave but the next thing he knows, he’s cold and numb and collapsing on the tiles. the IV stand is rolling back towards his hospital bed. the beast, because it could only be a beast that looks like that, on the screen seems to materialize in front of him. it’s face seems flat, and it has small round ears on its head. it’s smiling just like those people lying on the gurneys—wait what gurneys—but it has too many rows of sharp sharp teeth.

it reminds him of a teddy bear. 

it takes a step, click click, towards him—no, no it’s hunting hunting and he’s the prey—and he needs to get away get away but the door is closed completely so he has no choice but to grab the floor and drag himself towards the blacked-out windows. it hurts it hurts his shoulders; his stitches are pinching and tugging, but he doesn’t care because he needs to leave. 

click click and a foot digs deep on his back right between his shoulder blades—where are the heels, what about the heels—

the hospital’s emergency lights flicker on; it’s red, so so red and it’s bright, so so bright and it burns. in the crimson light, he sees the shadow of the figure hefting something large and heavy above him—what is that it looks familiar—and then the chainsaw roars and suddenly he’s drenched drowning drowning in a river in an ocean of blood—

he thinks he feels something cold settle on one of his arms, and a small voice, an ever-so-faint whisper of someone screaming his name.