Streams of Consciousness

Delivery

        The elevator reached the bottom floor, and I stepped out. I looked around cautiously, waiting, expecting Janice or some of her guards to stop me. Nothing. The ground floor was rather quiet, with no one in sight. It was an eerie silence. It was the hush of the forest when a predator was near. It was the stillness of a house at night when there was no one around. I knew immediately that something was wrong.

        I crept along the hallway, checking open doors, waiting rooms, and desks, looking for people. Each room was empty, each desk abandoned. Every step towards the exit made me more and more anxious. My body was screaming at me: DANGER! DANGER! I kept on imagining footsteps around me, voices in the distance, but when I went to investigate, there would be no one in sight.

        "What is going on here?" I asked aloud, hoping for a response. All I got for an answer was the echo of my own voice. Finally I reached the main corridor, and headed to the doors. I peeked through the glass, and saw people scattering about alongside vehicles driving away. They all stood a distance away from the hospital, but close enough that they would see me if I tried to exit out those doors. I needed to find another exit.

        I started to backtrack, looking for the exit I had used the first time I escaped. Door after door kept leading me inwards, and nowhere near another way out. I was in Daedalus's Labyrinth, with walls like snakes slithering in different directions. All the rooms seemed the same yet different. I wondered how any employee found their way around this hellscape.

        "How did I escape last time?" I asked myself. I began to think back, and realized that all I needed to do was follow the red exit signs. The sign was Ariadne's Thread, and I was Theseus. I looked around briefly, and finally found the sign. Left, right, straight, left, left, straight, right. That was all it took, and I ended up at the fire exit.

        "Hey! What are you still doing here?" a voice called out, making me freeze in my tracks. I turned to see a man in a white coat, a look of fear on his face.

        "Um... I don't really know what's going on..." I said.

        "Well some crazy lady two floors up is screaming about a bomb in the place! And she is holding a detonator! Everyone was ordered to evacuate the building until the authorities arrive," the man said, ushering me out the door.

        "Must be Jinx," I mused. Then I said, "Thank you! I would have never known..."

        "Yeah no problem... Now do you need to call anyone?" he asked.

        "No, I'm good, I have somewhere to be," I answered.

        "Are you okay? You look like you are having an anxiety attack," the doctor said.

        "What?" I asked. He grabbed my arm, placed his fingers on my wrist and waited a moment.

        "Well, you look very pale, you're sweating profusely, and your pulse is racing," he said.

        "Must be because of the bomb threat," I said.

        "Perhaps. Do you have any thoughts of impending doom, overwhelming fear, or increased danger surveillance? Any feelings of detachment from reality, confusion, or an urgency to escape but the inability to? Are you a patient here? Were you abruptly taken away from a treatment of any kind?" he asked me.

        "No, I'm fine..." I lied.

        "Okay... If you say so... well I hate to abandon you here, but I have patients to attend to. It's a damn nightmare trying to evacuate a hospital when there are people who need life support..." he hissed, and with one last concerned look in my direction, he walked off.