Venom

12

I greeted Dr. Wiltshire as I stepped into the hospital. We shared coffee and chatted a bit as usual before I went to the second floor for my second psych ward shift.

"Welcome back, Charlotte." Taylor greeted me. "Once again, all you need to worry about is checking in and checking out visitors."

I nodded. "Sounds good to me." I handed her the coffee I bought her.

"How did you know my order?" She gasped, in gratitude.

"I took a guess." I smiled.

Taylor stood up from her desk, "Unless you have any questions, I will be on my way to enjoy this coffee and grab some breakfast."

At first, I shook my head, but a question landed in my mind. "Wait, you know that door at the very end of the hall without a label, what's in it?"

Taylor shrugged. "It's just a storage space, nothing special."

That wasn't what Dr. Pennfield said.

Something was up.

"Oh, I was just curious."

She nodded, "Anything else?"

"No, thanks. Have a nice breakfast."

And with that, she was off.

Once Taylor left the floor, I began rummaging around her desk. There had to be some key or something to the door at the end of the hall.

There was no way it was simply a storage space. Perhaps Taylor didn't know, or maybe she was in on keeping the secret.

Something told me I needed to get behind that door.

Like last time, I rummaged through the drawers and folders, finding nothing.

"Hello." A voice called, startling me.

I straightened out my hair which had become disheveled from all my moving. "Uh...hi?" I looked up to see a middle-aged man standing expectedly before me.

What is he doing here? Who is he?

"Aren't you going to ask me my name and check me in?" The man prompted, annoyance ringing through his voice.

"Oh!" I breathed out feeling like an idiot. "I'm so sorry, I'm an intern and this is all new to me."

The man didn't seem to be that sympathetic.

I checked him in and guided him to the patient that he wished to visit.

Once he was inside the room, I proceeded to look around Taylor's desk. I found a pair of keys however they were all specifically labelled. One was printer room another staff room. I realized I should probably look at the unlabelled door and see what kind of lock I was up against to narrow my search.

Peering left and right, my heart raced as I wondered whether or not Dr. Pennfield would catch me again. I got up from the desk and cautiously made my way to the end of the hall. Hopefully, the visitor didn't decide to leave before I was done my investigating.

The door handle was cold against my sweaty palms as I tested the lock. Still in place. The lock was a unique shape in comparison to the other doors, more old-fashioned.

If I was an old-fashioned key...where would I be?

Probably in the back pocket of some old-fashioned man's pants.

I paced in front of the door, anxiously looking around, fearing Dr. Pennfield would show up any moment.

In my pacing, my shoe got caught on a tile. Strange. I frowned, kneeling to examine the tile. It seemed to be unlevelled and looked as though it had been shifted out of place. As I tried to readjust the tile, I lifted it to reveal a red box.