My Social Skills? Drowning. My Grip on Reality? Questionable. (And What Was That Hand?!): Definitely Not on the Hospital Menu.
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Author Note:
"Alright, deep breaths, everyone! If you thought Sawyer's morning was rough, his lunchtime just took a detour into 'what in the actual heck?!' territory. Note to self (and Sawyer): maybe skip the hospital cafeteria for a while (TT). Also, observe the reactions of his peers – denial can be a powerful (and isolating) force. And that hand? Yeah, we're all wondering about that hand."
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"I… overslept?" Sawyer said, the words slipping from his lips as he picked up the cold silver food tray from the counter. His voice barely made it past his throat, a fragile whisper that carried no conviction, no attempt at redemption. It fell flat, swallowed by the sterile, tension-choked atmosphere of the operating theatre's adjoining breakroom. The statement wasn't just an excuse—it was an admission. A confession without embellishment. Thin, brittle, and soaked in shame.
It was the kind of honesty that didn't earn you respect—only disappointment. And worse, it revealed he hadn't even mustered the energy to come up with a lie.
Behind him, Aiden reached for a similar tray, his fingers moving absently as he grabbed a cheese and bacon sandwich from the cooler. The silence broke—not from the soft hiss of the fridge or the hum of the overhead lights, but from Aiden's voice. It sliced through the moment like a scalpel through skin, precise and unfiltered.
"You overslept?" Aiden repeated, drawing out the word as if testing it for validity. The disbelief in his tone was impossible to miss, laced with a cocktail of shock, sarcasm, and the reluctant amusement of someone witnessing a slow-motion disaster.
He plucked a can of Dr. Spicy from the vending machine with a theatrical flourish, the aluminum clicking loudly against the other drinks. The clatter was jarring, a discordant sound that rang out like a drumbeat announcing an execution.
Sawyer turned his head slowly toward him, shoulders tense, jaw clenched. His expression flickered somewhere between irritation and quiet humiliation. Every nerve in his body felt raw. He could still feel Professor Reddy's burning gaze locked onto his back like a sniper's red dot, unblinking and damning.
"What did you expect me to say, man?" Sawyer hissed under his breath, keeping his tone low, aware of the ears around them but unable to suppress the frustration simmering beneath his skin. His heart hadn't stopped pounding since the moment Reddy had called his name. His pulse felt like it was trying to escape his body, hammering against his ribs. Everything—his dignity, his focus, his composure—was unraveling.
Aiden raised a skeptical brow and leaned against the nearby counter, sandwich in one hand, drink in the other. He tilted his head, eyes narrowing slightly as if inspecting a specimen under a microscope.
"Anything!" he exclaimed in a tone both playful and exasperated. "Literally anything! Tell him your cousin fell into a well. Tell him your house was invaded by squirrels. Say you were abducted by aliens!" He paused dramatically. "You could have said you died, Sawyer. Died and came back to life. That'd at least be creative."
There was a chuckle from one of the students near the vending machine. Another tried to stifle a snort behind his surgical mask. But it wasn't true laughter—it was the brittle kind born out of discomfort, the kind that bloomed in awkward spaces where no one really wanted to be.
"You could've told him a tale worthy of a block buster miniseries," Aiden continued, now gesturing broadly as if painting the air with his words. "Something tragic. Something noble. A Shakespearean act of God. A Greek-level catastrophe. A symphony of fabricated disasters with violins and emotional monologues example you could simply say your cat died?!"
Sawyer shot him a sidelong glance, face unmoved. No humor. No sarcasm. Just exhaustion written in the creases of his brow and the blankness behind his eyes. When he finally responded, his voice came out flat and quiet.
"I don't have a cat."
The line should've landed with humor, maybe even invited another laugh. But there was no levity in his tone. No bite. Just tired resignation. His mind was still fogged with remnants of the dream that had jolted him awake. His chest still felt tight from the panic of rushing to the hospital, knowing he was already too late. He wasn't just off balance—he was somewhere between reality and freefall.
There was no space left for jokes. Not with Professor Reddy looming behind him like a dark omen. Not with the collective silence of his peers settling around him, heavy and suffocating. The breakroom suddenly felt too small, the fluorescent lights too bright. Every breath felt like it cost him something.
And in that moment, with his honesty hung out to dry and laughter dying on the walls, Sawyer knew the worst part wasn't the lateness or the embarrassment.
It was how much of himself he'd lost before the day even truly began.
"The professor doesn't know that," Aiden replied, raising both eyebrows with exaggerated seriousness. His voice was steady, but the twinkle in his eyes gave him away. "You could've spun an epic feline tragedy. Something unforgettable. A tale of loss, heartbreak, a brave little kitten who died saving you from a fire."
He paused dramatically, his expression shifting as he folded his arms, now donning the mock authority of a judge passing a verdict.
"like I said, I don't have a cat."
"Wait—no, that's not even the point!" he declared, leaning forward slightly as if trying to hammer the idea into Sawyer's head. "The point is—you came in late, walked into the lion's den, and all you gave him was 'I overslept'? Man, you needed a story. A layered fabrication. Something so convoluted it made Reddy stop and think."
Sawyer exhaled through his nose, long and tired. He could feel the pressure of everything closing in again—his mistake, the stares, the silent judgments hanging in the air like mist. His tone came out flat, tinged with bitter sarcasm.
"Oh, maybe next time I'll write a whole novel on my way in," he muttered, placing the tray on the nearest table with a little more force than necessary. "Maybe throw in a meteor crash while I'm at it."
His voice wasn't angry—just fed up. The irony hung in his tone like steam rising from asphalt after rain. He was tired. Tired of running behind. Tired of pressure. Tired of being on edge before he'd even touched food or coffee.
Aiden raised a hand dramatically, like an actor mid-monologue, his voice swelling with flair.
"Next time? Oh, pfft—buddy, you don't have a next time," he said, wagging a finger with mock solemnity. "You're on night shift starting tonight. And guess who's also been graciously assigned to train the freshlings? That's right—you."
Sawyer blinked.
The words hit him like a slap.
He froze, his hands suspended in mid-air over the untouched sandwich, his mind refusing to process the sentence. Slowly, he turned toward Aiden, who was already smirking, enjoying the slow-motion unraveling of his friend.
"WHATTT?" Sawyer shouted, the disbelief in his voice punching through the breakroom's low hum. Heads turned. A nurse gave a quiet side glance. A medical student in the corner paused mid-scroll on her phone.
His face twisted in horror, mouth agape, eyes wide like someone had just told him he was scheduled for public execution.
"Oh no. What? When? How?" Aiden asked, his voice rising in mock disbelief as he leaned in closer, eyes wide in theatrical horror. "Because, my guy, you are so toasted."
His words landed like a gavel—final, unmerciful. But beneath the teasing, there was something else in his tone too: a faint thread of concern. A quiet acknowledgment that things might actually spiral if Sawyer didn't tread carefully.
"Night shifts and teaching?" he said again, more to himself this time, as if repeating it would somehow make it less real. "No, no, no. I wasn't even supposed to be on the roster this week. I was going to—sleep! I had a plan! I had dreams—like, actual sleep dreams, not career ones."
Aiden was already laughing under his breath, sipping his Dr. Spicy like a spectator watching chaos unfold from the safety of the bleachers.
Sawyer felt a pit forming in his stomach. The idea of nights filled with beeping monitors, blood charts, half-conscious interns, and now, the added burden of shepherding a bunch of clueless PKs—Pre-Knowledge, as senior medics called them—through their initiation? It was too much. Way too much. And he hadn't even recovered from the morning's disaster.
He dropped his forehead into his palm with a low groan.
"I'm going to die," he muttered. "I'm going to die and become a cautionary tale told in locker rooms."
Sawyer let out a breath that sounded more like a whimper, running a hand down his face. The plastic tray in front of him may as well have been a jury panel judging every poor life decision that led him here.
"Come on," he muttered, gripping the edge of the tray like a lifeline. "Couldn't you—I don't know—talk to the professor for me?"
His voice was pleading now, the desperation threading through his words unmistakable. He wasn't even trying to sound casual anymore. This was a last-ditch cry, a Hail Mary lobbed into the hopeful void of Aiden's family connection.
Aiden blinked at him slowly, then gave a solemn shake of his head.
"No can do," he said, tone flat, lips pressed in a firm line. There was no humor in his voice now—just clarity. His stance was unwavering, like a soldier refusing to cross enemy lines, even for a friend.
"Come on, Aiden," Sawyer pushed, voice rising as his hope began to fray at the edges. "He's your dad!"
"He is my dad," Aiden admitted with a sigh, eyes narrowing slightly as if the acknowledgment alone gave him a headache. "But that doesn't mean I have magical control over the man. You know how he gets. I stand up for you, and I end up dragged into night duty with you."
He gave a bitter little laugh, short and sharp.
"And I value my sleep, man. I value my sleep and my fragile grip on sanity. So yeah—love you, but I'm not going down with your ship."
Sawyer stared at him in disbelief, his mouth slightly open as he absorbed the betrayal. Then he let out a long, slow groan as he slumped forward, his forehead dropping dramatically onto the tray with a soft thud. The sandwich beside his head wobbled slightly.
"Useless," he mumbled into the tray, his voice muffled but thick with defeat. "You're absolutely useless, bro."
Aiden snorted, grabbing a fork and stabbing at his sandwich like it had personally offended him.
"Yeah, so I've heard," he replied easily, clearly unbothered by the accusation. "Join the club. But hey, at least I'm good for a laugh—and sarcasm. Emotional support, if you will."
Sawyer didn't respond immediately. He just stayed there, face still pressed to the tray, letting the coolness of the surface seep into his skin as if that could somehow calm the rising tide of dread washing over him.
Then, suddenly, Aiden shifted gears.
"So…" he began casually, lifting his can of soda to his lips. "Can I see your project?"
Sawyer lifted his head just enough to glance sideways at him, eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"What?" he muttered, voice raspy with irritation.
"Your project," Aiden repeated, tone innocent now, almost too innocent. "The surgical procedure draft you've been working on all week. I want to see how bad it is."
His grin returned, mischievous and sharp-edged, but there was curiosity behind it too. A different energy—not mockery, but challenge. As if he genuinely wanted to see what Sawyer had managed to pull together in the midst of his chaos.
"No," Sawyer replied, his tone clipped and steady. His eyes remained fixed on his half-eaten sandwich, like it held all the answers he needed to avoid this conversation. There was finality in his voice—a quiet wall of resolve that made it clear he wasn't playing games.
Aiden blinked, taken aback by the firmness in the response. But he wasn't one to give up so easily.
"Not even a maybe?" he asked, leaning slightly over the table, voice light with faux innocence. "A sliver of hope? A glimmer of possibility?" He raised his eyebrows in exaggerated expectancy, like he was trying to coax a yes out of thin air with sheer charm alone.
Sawyer slowly turned his head toward him, the look in his eyes flat as a dead monitor screen.
"How about a resounding, unequivocal no?" he replied, voice cool and unbothered, his gaze unflinching. It wasn't just about keeping Aiden away from his project—it was about principle. About pride. And maybe even survival.
Aiden let out a long, dramatic sigh, slumping back in his seat as though Sawyer had just refused him a vital organ.
"Okay, okay," he said, lifting his hands in surrender. Then his expression shifted—his eyes narrowed, his mouth curling into that sly, plotting smile that always preceded a ridiculous idea. "How about this?"
Sawyer didn't answer. He just stared.
"I go to my dear old father," Aiden began, voice adopting the silky cadence of a seasoned negotiator, "and I convince him to lighten your sentence. You know—trim your week-long exile to just four days. Maybe shave off the PK introduction shift too, make it slightly less of a soul-crushing experience."
He leaned in again, lowering his voice like he was revealing a sacred truth.
"And in return, I get to use your project as a reference. Not copy—reference. You still get the glory, and I get to pass. It's a win-win. Mutually beneficial. A true symbiotic relationship."
Sawyer blinked slowly, clearly unimpressed.
"You mean you get to copy my project," he said flatly, his voice coated with dry sarcasm. His eyes narrowed slightly, a touch of suspicion flickering in them like warning lights.
"I mean I get inspired by your genius," Aiden countered, placing a hand over his chest as if offended by the accusation.
"No," Sawyer repeated. "Three days. No introduction duty. And then—maybe—you get to skim the surface of my project."
Aiden raised both eyebrows, clearly debating whether to push the line further. But something in Sawyer's tone—maybe the iron beneath the exhaustion—made him pause.
"You drive a hard bargain," Aiden muttered, reaching for his soda with a sigh. "But I respect the hustle."
Sawyer gave a faint, tired smile and returned his gaze to the table. His sandwich had gone cold, but in that moment, securing a little dignity felt like a rare win.
"But Three days? Come on, man. Who do you think I am—a god? A master negotiator with mystical powers to bend my Dad's will?" Aiden threw up his hands in exaggerated disbelief, his voice rising slightly as he leaned forward on the edge of his chair. "Four days max, with the introduction class. That's the best I can do. And that, my friend, is my final, rock-solid, non-negotiable offer."
There was a playful defiance in his tone, like he was trying to sell the worst deal imaginable as though it was some grand prize. But beneath it, Sawyer could hear a trace of genuine effort—like Aiden had already spent a few favours just to get him this much.
Sawyer tilted his head, eyeing him with a raised brow, his face unreadable but clearly unimpressed.
"Is this really your best offer?" he asked, his voice calm, even, but lined with the kind of skepticism that only came from being burned too many times.
Aiden groaned, rolling his eyes like he was surrendering to a force greater than himself. "Yes. Sadly—tragically, even—yes, it is." His shoulders dropped a bit as he slouched back into his seat, the fight draining from his posture. "Look, I tried, alright? My dad is not exactly going to be handing out mercy like breath mints."
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Sawyer looked down at the remnants of his sandwich. His stomach still churned a little from the stress, but now that the terms had settled, the dread eased just enough for his appetite to return. He let out a long, slow exhale, the kind that carried the weight of reluctant surrender.
"Fine," he said finally, voice tired, the word landing like a weary stamp of approval. "I'll take it. A deal is a deal."
Aiden grinned, victory lighting up his face as he extended his hand with the pride of someone sealing a world-changing treaty. "Excellent. Shake on it?"
Sawyer didn't hesitate—he slapped the offered hand away, the motion sharp, almost dismissive, but not angry. Just final.
"Until I see proof," Sawyer said, his voice steady, serious, "until the wrath of the Professor has been officially appeased and I have it in writing that I won't be Running around this hospital come Thursday at 3 AM, no project. Not a peek."
"Oh, come on! Can I at least have a peek? A fleeting glimpse? A momentary glance?" Aiden whined dramatically, leaning across the small gap between them with a flair that suggested he was auditioning for a tragic role. His voice was thick with theatrical desperation, his eyes widened with exaggerated sorrow as he clutched his chest in mock pain.
Sawyer picked up his sandwich again, the tension slowly bleeding from his shoulders. With the terms set and the threat of night duty at least partially tamed, the food finally tasted like food again. His bite was full, determined—like reclaiming a piece of control he hadn't realized he needed.
Aiden leaned back, hand still hovering in the air where it had been swatted, a smirk slowly creeping back onto his face.
"Fair enough," he muttered. "But man, you really know how to kill the celebratory vibe."
Sawyer didn't answer. He was chewing. And for the first time that day, the silence wasn't heavy—it was earned.
But Sawyer didn't even look up.
He remained focused on his sandwich, chewing with mechanical movements, his gaze distant and unfocused. His mind hadn't truly rejoined the present—still caught somewhere between the pressure of the morning, the guilt of arriving late, and the lingering unease of that dream he couldn't quite shake.
Without a word, he pulled his phone out from his coat pocket and opened Connect—the hospital's internal network app. The glow of the screen reflected in his glasses as his fingers moved with idle familiarity, scrolling not for urgency, but more like a subconscious habit—something to occupy his thoughts before they spiraled into overdrive again.
"Wait... wait, you're back on Connect?" Aiden's voice cracked slightly with surprise. He shifted forward, trying to peek over Sawyer's shoulder like a nosy older brother catching wind of a secret. "And you didn't tell me?"
There was a flash of mock betrayal in his expression, lips parted, eyebrows raised high. "Seriously? This is how I find out? Like some random nobody on the ward?"
Sawyer's thumb paused mid-scroll.
"Not really," he replied after a beat, voice low and unconcerned, the kind of tone you'd expect from someone talking about the weather. "I just use it to look at pictures."
He resumed scrolling, eyes still pinned to the screen, flipping past posts and updates—mostly random uploads from hospital events, archived operation images, and teaching diagrams. Nothing particularly important, but somehow still comforting in its ordinariness.
Aiden blinked, confused.
"Pictures?" he repeated slowly, suspicion creeping into his tone like a patient heartbeat monitor beginning to beep irregularly. He leaned in closer, head tilting as he studied Sawyer's face, like trying to decode whether this was dry sarcasm or some bizarre new form of therapy.
"Pictures," Sawyer repeated simply.
Aiden narrowed his eyes.
"You do realize," he began, tone shifting from playful to mock-serious, "that saying something like that—something so vague, so shady—makes me question this friendship."
He placed a hand on his chest again, this time with a touch more sincerity beneath the dramatics.
"I mean, bro. The level of transparency? The depth of our bond? The very foundation of our friendship?" He gasped, hand flying to his temple like he'd just been wounded by betrayal. "Cracked. Shattered. Irreparably broken."
Sawyer chuckled under his breath, still not meeting Aiden's eyes.
"Relax," he muttered. "I just look at the surgery folders. Sometimes the old case files. It helps me focus."
"Ah, so it's nerd stuff," Aiden muttered, nodding in understanding. "Cool. Cool. That makes sense."
There was a beat of silence.
"You still could've told me."
"I literally just opened it."
"Still."
Sawyer let out a soft breath and finally looked up from his phone, one eyebrow raised, mouth curling in a faint smirk.
"You're so needy."
Aiden grinned, proud of himself. "I know. And yet you still talk to me. What does that say about you?"
"Come on, Aiden, you know how much of a friend you are to me," Sawyer said, attempting a deflection, his tone light but hollow. There was a forced lift in his voice, a kind of rehearsed brightness that didn't quite reach his eyes. He didn't meet Aiden's gaze—instead, he focused on the phone screen like it held a world he'd rather be in.
"You're practically my brother. My confidant. My..." He paused, shoulders lifting in a half-hearted shrug. "Well, you know."
Aiden didn't smile. Not really.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he said, his voice still carrying that familiar thread of teasing but now softened by something else—concern, maybe. "Now, whose pictures are you looking at?"
He leaned in just slightly, not out of playfulness this time, but out of real curiosity. His gaze was steady, not pushy—just patient. Unyielding, but not unkind.
Sawyer hesitated.
Then he swallowed, thumb frozen over the screen, the glow from the phone illuminating the shift in his expression. His shoulders deflated just a little, like someone letting go of a breath they didn't realize they were holding.
"My mum," he said quietly. The words slipped out like something fragile. "I... I was just looking at her pictures."
His tone was different now—gentler, more exposed. He didn't offer anything more, but the silence that followed said plenty. His thumb scrolled slowly again, passing photo after photo—some blurry, some posed, some candid and mid-laugh, like snapshots from another life.
Aiden's posture shifted.
"Oh..." he said softly, voice dropping an octave. The change in his tone was immediate—like flipping a switch from playful to present. "Oh, my bad, bro."
He pulled back a bit, giving Sawyer space. His teasing melted away entirely, replaced with quiet remorse. No jokes, no more pushing. Just understanding.
Without saying anything else, Aiden reached out and placed a firm hand on Sawyer's shoulder. He didn't speak. He didn't have to. The gesture said everything—I'm here, even if I don't understand it all.
Sawyer gave a small nod, still not looking up. His jaw tightened for a second, but then relaxed. The weight between them wasn't heavy in a suffocating way—it was just... honest.
Then, like life so often does, reality cut through the moment.
A buzzing came from Aiden's waist—the vibration sharp, abrupt, a cruel reminder that time wasn't waiting for either of them. He glanced down, eyes flicking over the screen of his phone, his expression shifting.
"Ah, man," he sighed, standing up quickly, already grabbing his bag from the floor beside him. "I've got to run. Apparently, I've got a three-hour stretch of consultation duty. A whole marathon of questions and diagnoses and trying not to look exhausted while doing it."
He flashed a crooked smile, one that didn't quite erase the concern in his eyes.
"A veritable gauntlet of patient concerns," he added with mock dread, adjusting his coat.
"Break a leg," Sawyer said quietly, his gaze never lifting from the phone screen. There was no sarcasm in his voice, just a soft sincerity that lingered in the air for a second too long. His eyes were locked on an old photo—his mother, smiling under soft sunlight, her arms around a much younger version of him. The edges of the photo were blurred, as if time itself had started erasing pieces of her from memory.
"Sure," Aiden replied, his voice coming out distracted as he reached for his half-eaten sandwich. His movements were quick, almost clumsy, as he tossed the last items into his bag and slung it over his shoulder. He paused for a beat, just long enough to throw one last glance back at Sawyer—a brief, flickering look of concern that didn't quite turn into words.
Then he was gone. His footsteps echoed down the corridor, gradually swallowed by the soft murmur of hospital life as it moved on without them.
Sawyer remained at the table, the glow from his phone casting a pale light across his face. He kept scrolling. Image after image, moment after moment—her cooking in the kitchen, laughing with a hand over her mouth, brushing something from his collar on what must've been a school morning. Every photo brought a subtle shift in his expression, a flicker of something heavy and unspoken behind his eyes.
The lunch hall around him felt too loud.
The clang of metal trays, the low hum of overlapping conversations, the scrape of chairs against tiled floors—it all grated against his nerves like static in his skull. He blinked hard and glanced at his backpack. No headphones. He'd forgotten them at home in his rush. A small oversight, but right now, it felt like the final straw.
He clenched his jaw and tried to tune it all out.
Time passed, though he couldn't tell how much. Slowly, the noise began to recede. The bustle of lunch hour waned as more people left. Conversations thinned, footsteps faded, and eventually, a kind of uneasy stillness settled over the space.
Sawyer looked up.
The tables were empty. The chairs, pulled out and abandoned, stood like hollow sentries in the fluorescent light. The food line was deserted. The air felt... still. Too still.
"Huh?" he muttered, blinking rapidly, trying to shake the daze. "Ehm... guys?"
His voice echoed slightly in the cavernous room, bouncing back at him in a way that made the hairs on his neck rise. He stood slowly, his chair scraping behind him.
No response. Nothing but silence.
Then, a sound—a creak. Long and drawn out. Metallic and old. The industrial kitchen door at the far end of the hall groaned open. Its heavy frame shifted like it hadn't been touched in days. The hinges screeched against rust.
Sawyer's breath hitched.
A hand appeared in the doorway.
It was dark, the skin rough and cracked, the fingernails jagged and black with grime. The fingers curled around the frame like they were testing it, claiming it. The grip was strong, knuckles prominent beneath filthy skin, and it held there for a second too long—unmoving, deliberate, unsettling.
Sawyer's heartbeat stuttered.
Everything in his body told him not to move.
The room beyond the kitchen door was steeped in darkness—not the kind that simply lacked light, but a thick, suffocating gloom that seemed to resist illumination itself. It was the sort of darkness that felt alive, coiling in the corners, writhing just out of view like something breathing in the shadows. Even the fluorescent lights from the lunch hall couldn't pierce through it. They only reached the doorway and stopped cold, as if the darkness swallowed them whole.
Sawyer's heart thudded once—hard—then picked up pace. He took a slow step back, but his eyes remained locked on the partially open door.
The air that spilled out was different. It didn't just carry the usual scent of overused oil or forgotten leftovers. It carried something far worse. A thick, nauseating stench hit him like a wall—sickly sweet at first, almost like syrup left too long in the sun. Then it turned. A deep, decaying rot that curled through his nostrils and settled like acid in the back of his throat.
He knew that smell.
Not from here, not from this part of the hospital—but from elsewhere. From places where silence pressed hard against your chest, where whispers traveled further than footsteps. The mortuary. Pathology. The cold rooms where bodies were tagged and stacked in silence. He remembered the faint scent that clung to clothes after a visit. This was the same—but stronger, older. Hungrier.
He instinctively held his breath, his lips parting slightly, trying to breathe through his mouth to keep the nausea down. His nostrils flared. His stomach turned, unsettled by memory and instinct alike.
Then the door creaked open farther—inch by inch—no sudden motion, just that slow, deliberate kind of movement that made time feel stretched and twisted. The darkness spilled out more, almost like liquid tar oozing into the room, tainting the clean air, corrupting the light.
Sawyer stood frozen for half a second longer.
Then his body kicked into gear.
He lurched to his feet, his chair screeching across the tiled floor with a sharp, grating sound that seemed to rip through the silence. The echo bounced back at him, as if the room itself was holding its breath.
Without sparing another glance at the doorway, he turned and bolted toward the main exit. His movements were sharp, erratic, driven by panic. His hand fumbled at the handle for a moment before finally gripping it. Cold sweat had made his fingers slick. He threw the door open with force, almost stumbling into the corridor beyond.
And then he stopped dead.
What he saw rooted him in place, drained the heat from his body, made his mouth go dry.
The corridor—once buzzing with idle chatter and footsteps, with people brushing past one another, checking phones, finishing lunch—was now still. Everyone from the lunch hall, the entire crowd he'd last seen mid-conversation, now stood silently in two symmetrical rows. The students. The doctors. The nurses. Even the janitor.
All of them.
Their bodies were rigid, lined up like soldiers on parade, not a single limb out of place. Their backs were straight. Their arms rested stiffly at their sides. Not one person moved.
Sawyer's breath caught in his throat.
He glanced from face to face, his gaze skipping, trying to find something familiar, something human—but there was nothing. Their faces were blank. Eyes wide and unblinking, all of them staring in the same direction—down the long corridor that stretched away into the hospital's deeper wings.
They weren't looking at him.
They weren't looking at each other.
They were all fixated on something far down the hallway, something Sawyer couldn't see—something hidden beyond the bend where the light faded.
He swallowed hard.
His voice failed him.
And suddenly, he became aware of just how alone he really was.
They turned.
Slowly.
Each head pivoted toward him in eerie unison the moment the door clicked open behind him, as though responding to a silent command. It wasn't just the timing—it was the precision, the mechanical exactness of their motion, as if every person in that corridor were connected by invisible strings pulled by the same hand. Their necks moved too smoothly, their spines too stiff. There was no fluidity, no human hesitation.
Sawyer froze.
Their faces came into full view.
It took a moment for him to register what he was seeing. At first, it looked like their eyes were glowing in the artificial light of the corridor. But no—it wasn't light. It was absence. An absence of color, of life, of identity.
Their pupils were completely white.
No iris.
No depth.
Just smooth, blank orbs that stared directly into him—through him—stripping away his sense of self like acid against skin. It wasn't just unnatural—it was wrong, wrong in a way that made every cell in his body scream.
"What the fuck?" he breathed out, the words barely forming, his throat dry and constricted. It wasn't a curse so much as a primal gasp, the verbal equivalent of flinching. His voice cracked midway, high and hoarse. He took an involuntary step backward. The sole of his shoe scraped against the floor, the sound jarring in the thick silence.
And then they moved.
As one.
They began to walk toward him—not rushing, not lunging—but slowly, deliberately, like they had all the time in the world and no doubt he would not escape. Each step they took was synchronized, and the lack of expression on their faces made it worse. They didn't blink. They didn't speak. They didn't seem to breathe.
Their eyes never left him.
Not once.
Sawyer's body responded before his mind could even form a plan. He stepped back again—then again—until his shoulder blades hit the wall behind him. The coldness of the surface seeped into his skin through his shirt, grounding him, but only just.
His knees threatened to buckle.
His breathing grew rapid, shallow, like he was trying to suck air through a straw. The sound of it filled his ears, mixing with the deafening thump of his heartbeat, each pulse echoing in his head like a countdown. His hands trembled at his sides, fingers twitching uselessly, unsure whether to reach for his phone, the door handle, or just cover his face and pray this wasn't real.
There was no sound but his own panic.
No distant voice.
No footsteps from behind.
Only the unyielding, synchronized rhythm of their approach—and those pale, soulless eyes closing the distance between them.
A hand shot out from the darkness behind the lunch hall door—a hand so pale it seemed almost translucent under the flickering overhead lights, its skin stretched tight over brittle, bone-thin knuckles. The wrist was impossibly narrow, like it had been starved of life for decades, and the fingers—long, angular, predatory—moved with the unnatural speed of something that had been waiting far too long.
Sawyer barely registered the movement before the thing clamped around his wrist.
Its grip was vice-like, cruel in its pressure. The touch was cold—freezing cold—not just like touching ice, but like plunging his arm into something dead and wet and ancient. He could feel the chill seep past skin and sinew, straight into his veins, numbing him from the wrist upward. The tips of its fingers were slick with something dark and gelatinous—thick enough to stain, thick enough to stick—and the smell that accompanied it hit him with brutal force.
Rot. Wet rot. Like something had been buried too shallow and dug up too soon.
He tried to scream.
The sound that tore from his throat wasn't even human. It was raw, strangled, guttural—a sound of instinct and terror, born from the deepest pit of his stomach. The kind of sound someone makes when they know death is no longer a concept, but a presence.
He tried to wrench free, but the hand held firm.
Images flooded his mind. A flash of bone, half-covered in flaking, grey flesh. A mouth sewn shut. Eyelids that peeled open not to reveal eyes—but darkness. He imagined what waited on the other side of that door. Not just a creature. Not just a corpse. But the embodiment of decay itself, something that did not belong in any hospital, any world, any plane of existence humans had language for.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
He braced for pain—for a pull, a snap of tendons, the sickening slide of his own body being dragged toward that hungry void. He thought of his mother. Of Aiden's last words. Of the unfinished messages on his phone and the sandwich he hadn't eaten.
And then—nothing.
The grip didn't tighten.
Didn't yank.
Didn't twist.
It simply held him there, as if uncertain what to do next.
Sawyer remained frozen, breath locked in his lungs, ribs rising with the shallow panic of someone on the verge of hyperventilating. His chest ached. His knees buckled slightly, but he caught himself on the edge of a nearby chair, the plastic creaking under his weight.
He dared to open his eyes—slowly, cautiously.
The hand was still there, still wrapped around his wrist, but motionless now. Almost… limp. There was no tug. No resistance. Just that same eerie stillness, like it had been abandoned mid-act.
His heart continued to pound, loud and erratic, drowning out every other sound. It took him a few seconds to realize the hall was still silent. Too silent. The kind of silence that feels manufactured, like the world has been muted from somewhere high above.
What was this?
Who—or what—had touched him?
And why had it stopped?
He closed his eyes again, daring himself to shut them, it was quiet, no movement no noise.
Finally—hesitantly—his eyelids fluttered open, trembling like fragile wings caught in a wind. His breathing was shallow, and for a few long seconds, his lashes flickered as though they were resisting the truth of what he might see.
His gaze swept the room, frantic and unsure, scanning for the gnarled hand that had gripped him, for the hungry darkness that had reached for him from the void. But there was nothing. No skeletal fingers. No shadow stretching out to claim him. No horror at the threshold.
He was in the lunch hall.
Back in his chair.
His phone sat clenched in his right hand, the grip so tight his knuckles had gone bone-white. His other hand lay on the table, twitching slightly. His breathing began to hitch—short gasps, chest rising and falling with shallow, uneven rhythm, like someone surfacing from deep underwater.
Everything around him looked… normal.
Utterly, painfully normal.
Students filled the lunchroom, eating in pairs or groups, chatting lazily about mundane things: a missed test, a new video game, a teacher's strange accent. The air buzzed faintly with the low hum of fluorescent lights and the distant clatter of trays. Across from him, someone laughed. Someone else stood and stretched. A girl popped open a soda with a hiss.
No one screamed. No one was frozen. No one stared with white, soulless eyes.
His eyes dropped to his tray. His sandwich sat half-eaten, the bread already going dry at the edges. A carton of chocolate milkshake sweated small beads of condensation, the droplets trickling down in slow motion. Time, it seemed, hadn't stopped at all—only he had.
He looked down at his wrist. The same one that had been gripped. Turning it slowly, turning it over and over, he searched for marks—bruises, redness, a phantom print from those inhuman fingers.
Nothing.
Just his own hand. Smooth. Whole. Alive.
And yet, something deep inside still recoiled from it—as if the memory alone had scorched it.
A sharp breath left his lungs, uneven and shallow. Then a sound bubbled up from his throat—part laugh, part sigh, part something else entirely. It wasn't joy. It wasn't even relief. It was cracked and unsure. A noise born of nerves stretched too thin.
"Oh… my bad," he muttered aloud, voice low, shaky, and meant for no one in particular. A nervous chuckle slipped through the corners of his mouth, barely masking the tremor beneath his breath.
He could feel it instantly—eyes.
Dozens of them. A slow shift in the energy of the room. Conversations quieted in patches. Forks paused mid-air. Heads tilted toward him with cautious curiosity. Some faces looked confused. Others amused. A few wore expressions shaded with something colder… like disdain.
No one looked scared though. Not the way he had been. Not the way he still was.
He summoned a grin, the kind of forced smile you plaster on like a cheap mask. Small. Tight. Fragile. It barely touched his eyes. Then came the shrug—careless, dismissive, the universal gesture of nothing to see here, folks.
From behind him, someone whispered, loud enough to be heard, soft enough to deny if challenged.
"He's at it again."
Then another voice followed, harsher, bolder.
"He shouldn't be here. He should be in a mental hospital."
A third chimed in—casual, cruel.
"I pity the patients he's assigned to."
The words hit like stones, not all at once, but in a staggered rhythm. One. Two. Three. Sawyer didn't know if they realized he could hear them… or maybe they wanted him to. Maybe it was the point.
He stood frozen for a moment, the back of his neck prickling with the heat of judgment. His stomach twisted, coiling into a tight, sour knot. His ears rang—not from the voices, but from the sudden silence he felt inside himself. That inner recoil. That need to shrink.
"Don't know how they make these things these days," he added quickly, lifting his phone in a vague wave, pretending to joke, pretending the moment hadn't just splintered something inside him. His tone was light, almost flippant—but it didn't fool anyone, least of all himself.
As if the terror he'd felt—raw and clawing—had been a simple glitch, some malfunction in the circuitry of his overactive imagination.
He clicked off the phone screen. The black glass reflected his own face, and for a moment, he barely recognized the pale, sweat-slicked image staring back. His features looked drawn, as if the fear hadn't left but burrowed deeper, hiding just beneath the surface.
His hand trembled slightly as he reached for his sandwich and milkshake. The food was unappealing now—lukewarm, soggy—but he picked it up anyway, not because he was hungry, but because he needed something. Something physical. Something real to ground him.
He stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor with a screech that made a few heads turn again. His limbs moved stiffly, like his joints didn't quite trust him anymore. Like his body still remembered the hand that had grabbed him.
Before he walked out, he glanced around the room once more—just to be sure.
No one met his gaze.
No one had seen what he'd seen.
No one else was shaken.
No one else felt the lingering weight of something unnatural, something ancient and wrong, brushing the edge of reality like a hand pressing against a thin sheet of glass.
He turned and left, walking faster than necessary, his shoes tapping a rhythm too loud against the tiled floor.
As the lunchroom door swung shut behind him with a hollow, echoing click, a silence followed him—not just in sound, but in the strange, suffocating way the air seemed to thicken.
Like something unseen had followed.
Still watching.
Still waiting.
Still hungry.
******
******
Note: "So, 'Pre-Knowledge' or 'PKs' – sounds about right for clueless newbies! Also, Connect seems to be Sawyer's digital comfort blanket, a place to escape reality (and maybe look at pictures of his mum). But that ending? White eyes? Wet rot? Definitely not a symptom listed in any medical textbook. And the way everyone else acted? Is Sawyer losing it, or is something truly sinister going on?"