Night had fallen on a hospital, the cloud beginning to cover the pale moon. A doctor walked out of the operation room, a sorrowful look on his face. He removed the masked covering his mouth and face, drenched in red and sweat. Two nurses followed him out of the room and down the silent corridor of the hospital. He stopped only to put a patient’s chart at the nurse’s desk in the lobby, empty of visitors or soon to be patients. He leaned against the cool granite top of the desk, and then placed his face in his hands.



“Doctor, are you going to call?.” A pretty nurse asked, checking the charts the doctor had just placed down. Through the silent building, a crack of thunder could be heard and lighting flashed through the big window in the lobby. The room was momentarily lit up in a surreal light as the doctor slowly looked at the nurse.


“No. I’ll have the morning nurse on staff do it. I don’t think I could this time.” The doctor replied mournfully and pushed himself off the counter and began to trek to the staff lockers. The man wished only to go home and see his wife. To erase what he had seen today and look forward to a new day.


“Missy, go home. I’ll clean up. The hospital can be creepy at night, especially with this storm brewing.” The doctor barely heard the nurse say to the other as he turned a corner. He drug a hand down his sweaty face and looked at his hand as he walked. A doctor… He was meant to care and save the lives of who walked in the building. He could see the red staining his hand and dripping to the floor. He paused at the staff door as the sounds of wheels could be heard. He turned and saw a male nurse pushing a gurney with a sheet covered figure. The sheet was bleeding red in spots and the doctor swore if looked at the ground, he could see the trail of dark red dots follow the gurney.
Thunder cracked and shook the building, and brought the doctor back to the world of the living.

With that, he turned into the room and went to his locker, then proceeded to change back into street clothes. He picked his bag up and went to find an elevator. He clicked the button, tapping his foot impatiently as the elevator made its slow descendent. It dinged and opened up , with only one other person inside. A pretty girl with mussy hair and pale blue eyes that smiled as he got on. The doctor noticed her rumpled clothes and guessed she must have been a late visitor.


As the elevator climbed to the basement where the doctor was heading, he chatted politely with the tired looking women. The elevator beeped and stops to let on another person on. Just as the other women was about to get on, the doctor suddenly pushed the close button and pressed the button for the highest floor. He tried to calm his breathing as he leaned against the back of the elevator. To his surprise, the women began to scold him for being so rude to the poor lady.



“Doctor, where are your manners? It’s late and obviously that lady wanted to leave just as much as you and me. Why did you slam the elevator close in her face?” The lady asked in a raspy, almost sickly, voice.


“That women… She was the one I was operating on this afternoon… I lost her during the operation. Didn’t you see the red wrist band on her wrist?” The doctor asked panicky, and he watched the lady give a hacking cough, then her pale face stretch grotesquely into a smile. His breath stopped as she raised her wrist.

“You mean like this?”, and on her pale wrist, sat a blood red wristband. A wristband for the dead.


The women spoke again, “Doctor, you have a matching one, too.” The doctor looked down, praying she was wrong. As he lifted his sleeve to reveal his wrist, there it sat; a red wristband.