I am in front of the phone. I shouldn't be here. I wasn't here a second ago. I look around me and see no one. Not a nurse. Nor a patient. No sound. No smell. Not normal.
Where was I before? I think I was eating. Pasta. Without sauce. It's taste tainted by the meds I had swallowed before.
There are not buttons on the phone. No tonality. Only the nurse can transfer a call from outside. Between 2 and 6 p.m. What time is it? And why am I here? I realize the lights are dim. As if it was past bed time. But still. The nurses should be in their office. I should hear some TVs.
I start walking toward my room. I feel like I haven't slept yet. « No you haven't! » I say to myself. « You were eating. »
Where did the time go?
I am still wearing my clothes but am bare feet. Why? Suddenly, the phone rings. I turn toward it, the sound of my blood pulsing in my eardrums. It's an old school ringing. It's shrilling and irritating. I look around. Still nobody. It shouldn't be ringing. Nobody can call on that particular phone.
Are the nurses making fun of me or what?
One step after the other, I walk toward it. I want the ringing to stop. But if I pick up that phone, I know something bad will happen. I know it in my bones. My guts tells me I shouldn't do that. « But if I don't, it won't stop ringing! » I plead to myself.
I pick it up. But I don't put it to my ear yet. The sensation in my hand feels wrong. It's too cold, too heavy! It feels sticky almost. And alive. I don't know why but it feels fucking alive. Like it knows who I am. And that I picked it up.
« Come on girl, » I say out loud. « It's just an object. »
But deep down it feels like it's not true.
There is a breathing on the line. I can hear it from afar. A rasp, deep and animalistic breathing. Waiting.
I can't. I let go of the thing and get back. But when I start walking towards my room again, the ringing. It restarts. Even though the phone is hanging on its cord.
« A bug » says my reason. « They wan't you » screams my madness.
A flash of anger rushes through me. They want me? They gonna get it. Infuriated, I pick up and put the cold black thing against my skin, shivering.
« DON'T GO! »
A savage, desperate, tortured scream. A howling full of pain and fear. A voice that cracks painfully. My own voice.
YOU ARE READING
The smoking room
HorrorIn a french psychiatric hospital, a woman can't sleep. Are the shapes and voice as unreal as the doctors keep telling her? Anyways, every night, she goes to the smoking room, waiting for the sun to rise.
