Photophobia
Harsh lights shine against Archie’s eyelids and he makes a face. The face quickly changes into what he assumes is a charming smile when he sees busty blue eyes bringing his meds and breakfast over to him. She smiles back and pops his tray down on his side table.
“How are we feeling today?”
Archie stretches his arms out and hopes she notices how toned he is.
“All the better from seeing you,” he says desperately cool and casual.
She giggles and casts those blues to his arms. He loves it.
“Now take your pill and enjoy your breakfast,” she says sweetly.
She leaves with a wiggle and he watches with a grin. He’s decided to ask her out as soon as this clinical research trial finishes. Two grand in cash at the end of it, he gets to flirt with Busty Blue, and all he has to do is sit in a hospital bed with the flu for three weeks. Even has his own PlayStation. Not too shabby. Archie turns on his personal TV, swallows his pills with a gulp of apple juice, and blows on his porridge. Lucky Archie.
Archie peels his pillow of his face. The patch he has left is tinged ever so slightly green, and the mucus that didn’t soak into the pillow has spread over his mouth and nose. He opens an eye and watches the doctor turn on the lights. It hits his open eye and sends shockwaves up to his brain and all at once he has a headache. He groans weakly.
“Good morning! How are we feeling today?”
Archie swears into the pillow, but all the doctor hears is a gentle, pitiful moan. The doctor chuckles and sets down the pills and breakfast. Busy Blue hasn’t made an appearance since the day before yesterday. Maybe the day before that. Archie hasn’t been counting because it makes time in here go slower.
“We’ll be taking blood tests in an hour, so if you’d be so kind as to take a shower beforehand,” the doctor says through his head bubble.
Archie opens his grotty eyes and peers at the doctor dressed in his old timey spaceman get up. Everyone that enters his room wears hazardous material suits and brings with them prodders and pokers and cold metal implements that are meant to make him feel better. The doctor smiles down at him through his plastic sheet. Archie feels like an animal at a zoo. Or a lab rat.
Every day is the same. Bright light. Bright morning greetings. Bright spots in front of his eyes when he pushes his palms into their sockets because this constant fucking headache will not go. Doctors bring his pills. No painkillers though because, “It will ruin the test results.” Blood tests. Lunch. Hours of restless squirming in sweat soaked bed sheets. Dinner. Blood tests. Then distressed crying and yelping as the sickness courses through him. With snapshots of sleep peppered into the whole twenty-four hour cycle.
Archie sits up in bed and coughs violently. He’s sick of the TV, he’s sick of the video games, and if he brought a book, which he didn’t because reading is boring, he’d be sick of that too. He can’t even enjoy the snacks and drinks he has because he’s so bunged up his taste buds won’t work. Is this really worth the money? How long will he be like this? They said up to three weeks but he’s surely been in here for a fortnight already…
The doctor comes in, all clad in his radiation suit, as if Archie is some sort of nuclear bomb. He told Archie his name when they first met but he’s forgotten. Doctor Who. That’ll work.
“Good morning! How are we feeling today?” Doctor Who asks.
“How long have I been in here doctor?” Archie croaks.
Doctor Who places the breakfast tray down and consults his clipboard. He marks down something with his pen. How does he write properly wearing those big gloves?
“Eight days so far, why are you getting bored?” Doctor Who asks with a smile.
Stop smiling, you prick.
“Yeah, I’m just really suffering I guess”
“Well that’s understandable. You are probably one of the most effected patients we have at the moment. But hey! That means more money for you by the end,” he says as he picks up the pills and places them in Archie’ hand.
“What are in these again?” Archie asks, eyeing the pills warily.
“Experimental. You remember we explained everything at your first appointment?”
Like he’d remember that, that was weeks ago. Plus the woman doing the explaining was quite good looking. They expect him to pay attention when there’s pretty gals in lab coats strutting about?
Doctor Who clears his throat and Archie looks up dumbly. He must have been staring at the pills in his hand for some time. Doctor Who nods towards them. He looks worried. Archie knocks them back with a small sip of orange juice.
“You know you’re allowed to make calls with friends and family if you are feeling isolated,” Doctor Who says.
Friends and family aren’t his thing. His best mate hasn’t really spoke to him since that thing happened with his sister. The other boys are all settled down with wives and girlfriends. He deleted his social media accounts ages ago because his ex-girlfriend kept bothering him. He’s just one of those guys that girls fall in love with too easy. Weak minded women are drawn to him. Archie smiles.
When he looks up the doctor has already left. When did that happen? Pull yourself together, Archie. This flu’s making your brain turn to soup. He pulls his breakfast tray towards him.
Wait. Archie holds a sausage up and stares at it. Flu doesn’t make people slow does it? And Archie here has never been famous for being slow. He shakes his heads and immediately regrets it. His brain cries out for relief and tries to force itself out of Archie’s eye sockets. He drops his sausage, claps his hands over his face and groans. These pills do nothing for his illness.
He’s not felt at all better since he’s been infected and it’s been weeks. The lights burn his retinas despite his eyelids shielding them. What are these pills if they’re not helping his flu? Dumb pills? Are they making him purposely slow? If so, then why?
Archie pushes his food away and covers himself in his duvet. The darkness helps his eyes and head but doesn’t stop his entire body from aching and coming over in cold sweats. This is fucking agony. He is at the mercy of doctors in space suits, being given fancy pills that seem to be making his brain fuzzy instead of curing his death flu. Archie tries his best to sleep, but unwelcome thoughts of being a trapped science experiment slither into his bed and torment him until he wakes up again two hours later.
Lights.
Pain.
“Good morning!”
Pills.
“What exactly are these pills trying to do doctor?” Archie asks after a hearty swig of orange juice. “Because I’m still feeling really sick, and I’ve felt not much improvement.”
The doctor doesn’t speak at first, and finishes writing on his clipboard. He looks up.
“This is experimental medication, we examine you every day and tweak the medication in order to get you better. There really is nothing to worry about. All you need to do is take your medication, get lots of bed rest, and you’ll get better soon enough.”
He shows off that same shit-eating grin and nudges the breakfast tray closer. Archie looks at his breakfast, and just past the bacon and eggs he sees the doctors blank clipboard.
It was only for a second as the doctor brought it back up to take notes, but Archie fucking saw it. It was blank. He’s pretending to write stuff down.
“Show me your clipboard,” Archie just manages to keep his voice steady.
The doctor puts on a very convincing confused face. “I’m sorry?”
Archie repeats himself, but anger is creeping into his words. “Show me your clipboard.”
The doctor backed up to the door. Scared. Archie’s taller than him, stronger than him. This doctor is up to something and this headache will not give up.
Archie watches the doctor leave without saying another word. That proves his guilt. He was pretending, giving Archie this cock and bull about “experimental medication”. Archie looks down into his hand. The pills are stuck to his clammy palm. Let’s see how he feels when he’s not swallowing these stupid pills. If only this headache would just let him think.
Archie wakes up and his brain is peaceful. The lights come on and his eyes ache dully, but significantly less than the past however long he’s been stuck here. The doctor comes in and says hello.
No. This is a different doctor. How funny. Archie scared him off. This doctor has a different voice, more… feminine. Archie switches on the charm.
“I haven’t seen a pretty face in a long while. What’s your name, doctor?” his voice is deep and husky, and it shoots pain down into his chest.
The doctor’s pretty face is covered by a slightly reflective mask that’s built into her airtight spacesuit. Her body shape can’t be seen through it. Archie reckons she got nice legs though.
“How are we feeling this morning? I’ve brought you a bacon sandwich and some juice,” the pretty doctor chats away to him.
Finally someone to make him feel better. Archie tries to push himself up but his muscles feel numb and rubbery. His head is clear but the rest of him is gummed down and throbbing with sickness.
“Jesus, I don’t feel the best here, doctor,” Archie manages in a series of painful creaking groans. “Do you think I could get some painkillers?”
The pretty doctor turns to him and he instinctively jerks his arms in the air in mad fear and shock. His hand catches the tray and spins it through the air, juice soaks into his bed sheet and chills his thighs. Inside the pretty doctor’s helmet, just behind the casing, is a pale withered face, with lank, thin hair framing an expression of despair and torment.
Archie shouts out nonsensically and flails around, trying to put distance between him and the terrifying old hag. He screams for help and tries to drag himself out of bed, but his legs are so weak he is only able to slump his upper body onto the floor. He looks up to see two more doctors in hazmat suits crash through the door and rush to help him up. He looks back to the female doctor to see her face back to normal, although she is watching him in shock.
Archie struggles to find words to explain what he saw, to warn the doctors of the horrid ghoul in their midst.
“WITCH! WITCH! SHE’S A WITCH!” he blabbers, panicking further after realising how ridiculous he sounds, but it’s true. He knows what he saw.
The doctors are fighting him, trying to pin him to the bed and restrain him. He looks back and forth to them both, hoping to see any indication that they believe him. He feels his face grow cold and his thighs warm. He’s pissed himself.
Both doctors have the same white face, this time contorted in anger, with their teeth bared and their eyes wide and mad. Archie loses all bodily control and thrashes wildly at his captors, terror taking hold of his mind. Another doctor pushes in between them with a syringe, and, with a flash, it’s out of his line of sight, somewhere underneath his ear, and then the world falls away from him. He doesn’t even feel the prick.
Archie swims to the surface of consciousness and his eyes flutter. Immediately, he can tell his flu has become worse. Not just that but his headache has reached a limit where if he wasn’t so weak, he’d be screaming. They’d been giving him those pills again. He’s dimly aware that he is in a different room. There is a large mirror covering the wall on the right side of his bed, but from his horizontal angle, he can’t see himself. Archie reckons he looks like shit.
He has to escape this place. These doctors are clearly aliens or witches or some sort of sick cult. What else can explain what he’s seen or what they’ve been doing to him? He’s just woken up but he’s still exhausted. He needs to rest. Despite the merciless headache, sleep comes easy.
He awakes with a plan already fully formed. Archie needs to pretend to be taking the pills, find a weapon, then bide his time until he finds the perfect moment to strike. It seems even his headache is starting to subside, a sign his next pill is on its way soon. And sure enough a doctor, clad in protective gear, comes through not long after. He seems to have known Archie was awake because he approaches the bed warily. He makes sure he does not face Archie, and says nothing as he places a tray of the two pills, with a breakfast garnish. Then he’s gone. This doesn’t make sense. They’ve been pretty adamant about him taking these pills, even giving him them while he was unconscious. Why are they not watching him now? Do they not want to make sure he’s taking them?
But they are watching him.
“Swallow the pills,” barks a tinny intercom, the speaker itself Archie could not see.
Then it rushes to him like an icy wind. They’re watching him through the fucking mirror. It’s a two way mirror. He’s being studied. Archie tries to shout in protest, but all that comes out is a pathetic, strangled yelp. Tears reluctantly form in the corners of his eyes and collect into little pools before streaming down the sides of his face. He feels so weak and exposed. And these pills will cloud his mind with pain again, then he’ll be trapped there. He knows it. His hands shake as he feels for the small paper cup containing the pills, and brings them to his mouth. He dumps them in, then follows up with a drag of juice.
“Open your mouth and move your tongue left, right, up and down,” the voice says. It sounds robotic and cold.
Archie does as it says, then turns onto his left side, facing away from the mirror, and waits. A few moments pass. Thirty seconds. He’s gotten away with it. One minute. He has. They didn’t see the pills, each one in between his wisdom teeth and his cheeks. Without moving too suddenly, as if performing delicate surgery, Archie pops each pill out of his mouth, and slips them into his pillow case.
Now his mind will be clearer come tomorrow. Even if his flu worsens. At least now the headaches are gone. Now he can rest. Now he can plan. Now he can hear himself think.
Can you hear me now Archie?
Archie’s head is as clear as glass, although his chest is heavy with a coating of mucus. His lungs are drowning and he can hear the thick bubbling in his throat as he breathes. He can feel every one of his symptoms all working simultaneously to keep him sick and bed bound, but his head is in full working order. All he needs is his brain to help him get out of this room.
He feels the underneath of his bed for any sort of weapon he could use. Perfect. Metal mattress supports, flat and cold, around four inches width — just able to get his hand around it. Fastened down with one screw in each end. First step is to unscrew them both. They’re chipping away at Archie’s fingernails, but he can handle it now those pills aren’t making him all loopy.
At some point the doctor comes in and silently delivers his breakfast, and hands him the pills. This time he tries too convincingly to swallow the poison and one finds its way sliding down his throat. He immediately lays on his side, facing away from the window and starts thrusting his fingers down his throat as quietly and nonchalantly as possible. A thin, watery spew eventually brings the pill back up, and he dribbles it into his pillow. With Archie’s blocked nose, and the doctor’s HAZMAT suits, no one can tell how fetid the stench of the room is.
Drip, drip, drip.
Archie hasn’t slept. He’s staring at the ceiling while his fingers are at work picking at the last screw holding down his make-shift weapon. His fingers are now numb to the pain of picking at it. His mind has blocked it out.
Drip, drip, drip.
Now he is free of the mental chains the pills had over him, he feels better than ever. Even the aches and sores of his illness are blocked out, all that is on his mind now is getting out of this room by any means possible. Archie concentrates on the odd dripping that at some point started over the duration of the night.
Drip drip drip.
By morning he’ll have this mattress support free and he can break out. He just needs to do it before they’re awake and back to spying on him.
Drip, drip, drip.
He hears a tinkle. The screw falls to the floor. Archie grins. He edges his head over the bed slightly to see where it landed. It’s not rolled too far away, and now he’s found the source of the dripping.
His nails have split and his fingertips are torn. Blood is collecting onto the bed frame and dripping into a crimson puddle below him. The screw is in the middle, rapidly revolving in little circles every time a fresh drop of blood hits it.
Drip, drip, drip.
Archie?
Wake up, Archie.
Wake up.
They’ll be here soon, Archie.
You need to kill them, Archie, before they kill you.
You can’t let them drug you again, Archie.
If they give you those drugs again, it’ll push me back down.
You need to kill them, Archie.
Doctor Baxter stares through the glass. Doctor Who sits next to him, waiting for him to reply.
“You’ve looked through his paperwork?” he asks. “No mention of any mental illness?”
“He didn’t mention any family history of any mental illness no,” Doctor Who says hesitantly. “He may not have known, or he may not of realised it was important. From what I’ve heard, he wasn’t the smartest of our patients”
Baxter shoots him a disapproving look that makes the doctor’s face flush and hurriedly continue speaking.
“From scans we took when he was sedated, he has a rare form of schizophrenia coupled with acute paranoia.”
Baxter looks back through the glass and sighs.
“How likely is it that formula 14B was the drug that caused the mental break?”
Doctor Who shuffles through papers, looking at statistics he has already memorised.
“It seems 14B somehow uncovered the dormant mental disorder, then attempted to combat and eliminate it. This is most likely what caused his migraines.”
Dr. Baxter’s eyes flare slightly.
“14B could, with altering and testing, could, be a major step forward in fighting mental illness. The perfect anti-depressant.”
Doctor Who watches Baxter warily.
“Possibly yes, but in this case, the patient stopped taking the pills before having a mental break and attacking the doctors. Harrison is still in pretty bad shape and the other doctors are still shaken up”
“Do we know why?” Baxter asks, eyes still on the glass. “Why he was so threatened by the other doctors?”
“From what we gather, he was seeing his reflection in their hazmat suit mask panels and didn’t recognize himself. He’s lost a lot of weight and become quite pale. With him being delirious and the mental disorder suddenly emerging it made him extremely hostile. If it wasn’t for him seeing himself in the one way mirror and pausing so the others could restrain him, Harrison probably would have been beaten to death.”
Baxter keeps his eyes on the glass.
“I didn’t know this glass was soundproof.”
Doctor Who stands and glances at the room through the glass.
“It’s not. His vocal chords gave out from screaming for so long.”
On the other side of the glass, in a white room with one bed, lays patient zero. His eyes are wild and red, watching things dance above him, things only he can see. His eyes are bloodshot and dry from lack of moisture. He stopped blinking hours ago. His mouth is open and twisting as if he were screaming, but only the faintest strangled whimpering escapes his bulging throat.
Doctor Who sits back down. The sight of patient zero makes him gag. Baxter doesn’t take his eyes off the tortured mind opposite them.
“This patient has done the world of psychotherapy a great service.” Baxter pulls his gaze away and fixes them on the other doctor. ”Make sure his death is as quick and painless as possible.”
