Upon the Gaze (Ghostface X Reader 18+)

CHAPTER 25 - The Scent of the Saline Drip

The rain pounded against my windshield as I pulled into the Denbrooke hospital parking lot. I attempted to ease my growing anxiety by practicing my breathing. There was both so much I felt I had to say, and at the same time, nothing I wanted to say. I stepped out of the car and locked the doors, then made my way to the front lobby. Stepping in I noticed it was unusually scarce for a hospital waiting room. As I made my way to the front desk, I got a sense of foreboding. There were dozens of empty chairs around, and not a single soul in sight. The only thing to be heard was the television hanging on the wall, advertising the hospital name.
I finally stepped up to the counter, but again was surprised to see nobody was there. I leaned over the counter of the front desk, looking around to see if maybe someone was just distracted by something off to the side. Nobody was there though. I breathed a sigh. I looked to the right of the small counter, dividing the open waiting room from the staff, and saw an old yellowed phone. I picked it up, remembering sometimes you could reach other parts of the hospital to get someone's attention. The phone simply beeped with no answer when I held it to my ear. I knew there was no point in uttering even a simple hello. I placed the phone back down, and began to look back around behind the counter. Below, on the front desk, I saw a check-in book of sorts. I looked behind me and around to make sure nobody was watching me, then leaned over the counter for the book. Flipping through the pages I learned that patient names were in it, as well as their room numbers. Not very smart to leave this here, unattended, I thought. Finally I came upon my last name.
Reading my father's name, I slid my finger across the page, following up to the room and floor number. With that I closed the book, placed it back on the desk behind the counter, and began on my way. I walked around the corner and down a long hallway. It felt like I was walking down the abandoned halls of a dystopian hospital. Not one person was around. Most of the doors were closed, and all seemed silent except for the occasional coughs from patients in their rooms, though they all sounded distant. My anxiety was growing once more, and I squeezed my hands shut as I made my way to the elevator. Stepping in I breathed a slight sigh of relief once the doors closed. I was often the opposite of those who had claustrophobia. I felt safer in small spaces. Hospitals were not one of my favorite places, and despite the thought being morbid, I always thought of them as more so indoor graveyards. They were simply the waiting rooms before death, and sometimes it just wasn't your time yet.
The elevator dinged as the doors began to open, and my anxiety re-clung to my mind. I stepped out, and began wandering down the still empty halls. Finally I came upon his room. B12.
I took a deep breath, and swallowed my anxiety before stepping in. I didn't want to knock incase he was sleeping. It wasn't as though I was doing it out of kindness though. I just simply wasn't sure how to face him, and if he wasn't concious in the moment I entered, it would make this all that much easier for me.
Immediately I was hit with the scent of the saline drip, and that strange clean smell that was all too common in hospitals. I could hear what sounded like deep breathing through a machine. I stepped slowly, carefully, into the room.
It was a strange sensation to feel as I finally passed the dividing privacy curtain to my father's hospital bed. He was hooked up to a ventilator, with IV's in his arm and a heart monitor. He was infact unconscious, and he seemed to be struggling slightly with his breathing. His chest heaved and lowered as he attempted to breath in his sleep. I walked slowly to the seat built into the window, on the left side of his bed. I simply stared at him, in his decrepit state.
"Well, just look at you now..." I said softly, in a lifeless tone, almost as lifeless as his body appeared. "Some man you turned out to be. How does it feel? Being bed ridden in a hospital because you couldn't finish yourself...because you couldn't die before someone found you. And for what? Why? Could you just not live with the guilt? Or did you just not get enough of what you wanted out of life? Is someone as awful as you even capable of guilt?" I continued to speak with the unconscious man.
"Mom seems actually worried about your well being. More so than mine. She's kind of a dimwitted women, isn't she?" I leaned forward, elbows resting on my knees. I looked at his pale face.
"You'd always tell me not to talk about mom that way. Are you gonna tell me not to now? She abandoned you, you know? She abandoned both of us. Of course, you actually deserved it. I didn't."
A dark smile began to tug at the corners of my lips.
"You used to be such an important man. Everyone looked to you as if you were so highly, so incapable of doing wrong. And how could an influential lawyer such as yourself ever be wrong?"
I laughed slightly. "And look at you now. You're so fucking pathetic. How many days did it take for someone to find you? How broken is your mind now from the overdose? ...You're not coming back from this."
I stood up from the chair and took a few slow steps forward to his bedside. I loomed over him. My eyes stared intensely at his face. I wanted to burn this imagine of him in my head. I wanted to know he didn't die a proud man, but a broken one. Alone in a hospital. He was in the waiting room for death, and it was his time. My eyes broke finally from his face, having felt sufficient in capturing the image for the rest of my life. I looked to the heart monitor, then back down to him.
"You don't want to come back from this. You've got nothing left, I can promise you that." My hand made its way to the ventilator mask on his face. It was the one thing keeping him breathing. Pumping air in and out of his lungs. I felt numb. Empty. But another thing was tugging at my insides. I didn't question my morals as my hands began to move almost of their own volition. I lifted his head gently, and removed the ventilator mask. Immediately his breathing sounded struggled, then began to shallow.
"....Thanks for nothing dad. Say hello to grandpa for me." I whispered close to his face. The monitor flatlined with an ominous high pitched noise. The sound broke my trance, and my eyes widened slightly, realising what I had just done.
I had to leave. I had to get out of here.
I ran for the door, taking one last look at my father's dead body. His face was sheer white now, and his eyes remained closed. His lips were chapped and bluish. That feeling took over me again, and I smiled as I left the sight of him.
I walked speedily down the hall, trying not to look too suspicious. I decided my best bet was the stairs. I saw the exit sign and flung the door open. I rushed down the steps, hearing the echos of my foot steps on the concrete. Finally I reached the bottom. Miraculously the door to the outside world was unlocked, and I ran through it. The rain was still heavy, and I took back a quick walking pace. I doubled back to my car and immediately took off once the engine ignited.
As I sped away from the hospital, I realized how heavy I was breathing. The emotions caught up to me now. What was this feeling? It was a mixture of so many emotions. Fear, anguish, uncertainty. Was there guilt in the mix? No. No, there was something else.
As I reached the exit off the highway, onto the back roads that were a straight shot for home, I felt a surge of a new kind of emotion. I slammed on the gas and sped down the road, howling out my window. I felt invigorated, I felt ALIVE.
I screamed, and whooped, and yelled. I didn't care that the rain was shooting like needles through my now rolled down window. It was exhilarating. I road the whole way back home like that.