Stitches

I walked into the hospital room, seeing blank and astounded expressions. My voice shaking nervously, I asked, “What’s going on?” I could feel the room closing in on my body, but my soul was still there. No one would answer me. It’s as if I was invisible to everyone. The strange old man rose from the hospital bed. He looked as if he has been beaten up. There were scratches on his face, red and pus filled with stitches hanging from his face. It was as if he wasn’t finished with his surgery. He began to slowly walk to me, the man looked vaguely familiar but it was hard to tell from his stitches. “You’re out of time.” The words echoed in my ear, the voice began to sound recognizable. By the time I could comprehend what he meant he was running towards me. I ran down the hallway and saw the walls that were once pale white with floral wallpapering, but now they had turned black and started to shed and tear down. I could still hear those words ringing in my ear, getting louder, and almost screaming. Running as fast as I could down the halls, but it seemed like I was getting nowhere. He was catching up to me, cornering me in the hallway where I had nowhere to turn to. Thinking this was the end of me, I closed my eyes and I found myself praying for something I didn’t believe in. When I opened my eyes, he was right there, in my face. There was no more pus filled stitches, I had finally realized who this man was. When I opened my mouth, wanting to scream his name, I woke up.