The fluorescent lights beamed over my head as I tied my sutures shut on my patient. It had nearly been three hours since I started repairing Mrs. Smith’s mitral valve. Everything was going well, a routine surgery. How I adored performing surgery! The smoothness of the hand, the precision of the eye, the adrenaline that filled my veins. It was all so wonderful. I was living my best life. I mean, I had everything. I had finished med school at the top of my class, and I had a big apartment in the heart of New York City. It was times like this when I could help people just by doing what I loved that made me feel complete. That and the recognition. I’ll admit, I loved the looks on peoples faces when they thanked me for my skill.

Once I had finished up, I walked out of the operating room to inform the family how the surgery had gone.

“Dr. Hart, how did it go?” Mr. Smith asked.

“Everything went great. She should be awake within an hour or so,” I said.

“Oh, thank you, thank you so much!” he said as he gave me a hug.

“It was my pleasure,” I said.

I was on my way to finish up Mrs. Smith’s patient chart when a loud bang filled the room. Surely enough, someone had tripped over a medical supply cart. It happens a lot more than people think. I rushed over to offer my help when I saw who fell over the cart. She was beautiful. I don’t know why that was my first thought, or why I stopped to look at her instead of kneeling down to help her.

“Well, are you going to help me or not?” she asked with a kind, confused look on her face.

“Oh, um yeah, sorry,” I said as I helped her up.

“I’m so clumsy. I’ve been in this hospital time and time again, and I still manage to cause a scene,” she said.

“It’s all good, I’ve seen people more stupid,” I said, “Not that you’re stupid. That is not what I meant. You actually seem really pretty. I mean pretty smart. Not that you’re not pretty, though.”

“No, it’s okay. I know what you mean,” she said while she laughed.

“It doesn’t look too bad, just some stitches, and you should be good to go,” I said as I held a gauze over her forehead.

“Great,” she said.

As we walked into an empty consultation room, I sat her on the bed and pulled out my suture kit. It was then when I really took in her beauty. She had these big brown eyes and silky brown hair. I don’t normally notice anyone this way, ever. I don’t even know why these thoughts were crossing my mind because technically she was a patient, and I literally just met her. I didn’t even know her name.

“So what’s your name?” she asked. 

Woah. Can she read minds or something? I thought.

“Felix,” I said, “Dr. Felix Hart. I’m a surgeon here.” 

“I know. I’ve seen you around,” she said.

“You have? Then why did you ask my name?” I asked as I started stitching her forehead.

“Well, I knew you were a cute surgeon who worked here, but I didn’t know your name,” she said.

I blushed. Maybe a bit too hard. Also, for some reason I started giggling. Giggling. What even was that? I was appalled, truly, but this was a win.

“So you tripped and busted your face just so you could talk to me?” I asked jokingly.

“Oh no, I actually work as a social worker, so I come in here a lot to help kids that have no one else to turn to after tragic events. It is a very upbeat job,” she said sarcastically.

“Mhm…and what would your name be, Mrs. Upbeat Job?” I asked.

“Sasha Coleman,” she said.

“Well, Sasha, you’re all fixed up. You’re good to go,” I said.

“Thank you Felix, but before I go, I think we should meet up for dinner later. Just as a check-up, you know, to make sure I’m not concussed,” she said as she reached for her business card with her phone number on it. 

“That seems like a great idea. I’ll call you after my shift,” I said as I grabbed the card from her.

She then walked out of the consultation room, and I cleaned up and turned my attention back to completing Mrs. Smith’s chart. I don’t know how I just managed to get a date in five minutes, but I thanked my lucky stars and hoped it would go well.

By the time I had gotten home, Sasha and I had talked on the phone about how we wanted to go to a steakhouse at 8:30 p.m. It was already 6:00 p.m., so I had to get ready quickly. I took a shower, put on my best button-up shirt, did my hair, and left.

Long-story short, it went even better than I thought it would. I wasn’t nervous, and we talked all night. I mean, to the point where the steakhouse employees told us we had to leave. This girl was amazing. I didn’t bring her back to my apartment, though. I wanted this to be serious, so I drove her to her apartment and kissed her goodnight. 

I don’t remember much from when I arrived back to my apartment because I was very exhausted by that point. I do, however, remember that I managed to make it over to my bed because that’s where I experienced the worst nightmare of my life. When I fell asleep, I was transported to a dark void with whispering wind surrounding me. Everything was calm until I caught glimpses of a creature, one with snarling breath and rumbling steps. Suddenly, snapshots of wine red blood splattered across everything filled my mind. My senses were overwhelmed, I couldn’t breathe. The world was thumping, like a heartbeat. All I could hear were screams. High-pitched screams of agony that pierced through the air and lingered there.

I didn’t know what to do or where to look. If I looked one way, the creature was there, and if I looked another way, the blood was there. It was all a blur. I tried to close my eyes, but it was like I couldn’t. I tried to run away, but then all of the sudden, I was back where I started. I kept trying to run away, until I tripped over something, the source of the blood: a human arm, detached from its body. It was oozing with pulpy meat and had vermilion blood seeping out of it. The creature must have done this, I thought. I frantically tried to look for it, but it had vanished. My eyes began to grow hazy and my head started pounding. My ears rang and my mind went numb…

 All of a sudden, I woke up. My skin was flooded with sweat, and my heart was racing. What the hell? I thought to myself. I was terrified, but then after a few moments I composed myself and decided that nightmares are just figments of the brain’s imagination. I must have just watched too many “Criminal Minds” episodes, I thought. I checked the time. It was 6:58 a.m.  My alarm was about to go off, so I decided to jump out of bed and get ready for work. I was eating breakfast when I turned on the T.V. I switched to the news, and there was a headline that read “BREAKING NEWS: MURDER ON WEST BOULEVARD ALLEY.” My heart sank. West Boulevard Alley was where Sasha lived.

Then I came to an eerie realization. My dream, the screams, the monster. Was I psychic? What was going on? I quickly turned off the T.V. and decided to call Sasha. Pick up, pick up, pick up! my mind chanted. No answer. I couldn’t move. I managed to move my hand back to the remote to turn the T.V. on. The news anchor came back on screen.

“Confusion surrounds the disastrous murder that took place last night. Police say that it took place last night around 10:00 p.m. The victim, Sasha Coleman, was found this morning, dismembered, beside her apartment building. This was a gruesome act, and police are determined to find the murderer. More information to come later,” the news anchor said.

A feeling of terror fell upon my entire being. Was my dream real? Was I still dreaming? Did I kill Sasha? Why would I do that? Why couldn’t I remember? My brain was bombarded with questions but left empty without answers. I then remembered the screams. The tone of the voice, the bloody arm and the hand attached to it. The hand was feminine with light blue nail polish. Sasha had light blue nail polish, I recalled. How could this have happened? Was I really a murderer? 

I then heard my front door open behind me. A set of heavy footsteps entered. I had no one coming over, and my door was locked. I turned around and found my eyes fixated on a tall man dressed in black, baggy clothes with a hat covering his face. It wasn’t until I lunged toward him to get him out that I noticed his face… or lack there of one. His skin was meshed into tough, leather-looking patches. He didn’t have a nose, and his eyes were peeled open with scars around them. 

“Who are you?!” I yelled, “Get out!”

He was much bigger than I was, so when I tried to push him out, he just tackled me to the ground. It was then that I noticed the eyes. They were almost permanently set open, but they looked familiar. They were blue, just like mine. It had taken me a minute before I realized this was a patient of mine, a burn victim that I operated on last year. He had been a victim of a vicious acid attack, and I had been his primary surgeon. His eyes, then filled with sadness and despair, were now full of rage. I was so shocked at who this man was that I didn’t notice his hands around my neck until I was being strangled.

“Please! I’m sorry,” I managed to croak, “I know who you are.”

His hands released pressure from my neck.

“You do?” he asked, his voice raspy and hollow.

“Yes, I do,” I said.

“Then you know why I am here,” he said.

“Does this have to do with my dream?” I asked.

“It wasn’t a dream,” he said as a grin spread across his face.

“But I wouldn’t do that. I would have remembered,” I cried.

“It’s crazy what drugs can do,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Felix, if you really remember me…what is my name?” he asked.

I didn’t remember his name. I had so many patients that I couldn’t remember all of them.

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember,” I said, terrified.

“Of course you don’t. You don’t want to remember your failures, all the people you turn into monsters. People that depended on you to fix them,” he said coldly.

“I did fix you, the best I could. You just had such extensive injuries, there wasn’t anything else I could do,” I said.

“That’s the best you’ve got?” he said. “You turned me into a monster. Do you even know what it’s like to be looked at with disgust, with genuine fear?”

“No, I’m so sorry, I can’t imagine what that must feel like,” I said.

“Well you won’t have to imagine for much longer. Soon everyone will see you as a monster. Maybe not for your looks, but for your actions,” he said with an expression of satisfaction.

He then pulled out a small needle. A clear liquid swished inside the vial. Unable to get free, I was stuck beneath him. He shot the needle in between my fingers, I assumed, so the injection mark would be harder to find. My eyes went fuzzy, and I started feeling sweaty. I then started convulsing like I had no control of any part of my body. My eyes were frozen in fear, and all I could do was stare at this man. 

“Don’t be afraid, Felix. I’m not going to kill you. No… that would be too easy,” he said.

Not going to kill me? Really?! Then why do I feel like I’m dying? I thought.

He started putting away the needle and began to pull a knife out of his pocket. It had blood all over it. 

“See, Felix? This is what you killed that poor girl with. It will be found in your trash can, which the police will find, because soon they will figure out that you were the last person with Ms. Coleman. It also won’t be long until they find that the store across from Sasha’s apartment building also has cameras that show you brutally attacking her with this knife. Everyone will blame you. Everyone will say you went crazy. No one will find the hallucinogens I drugged you with. Do you know that they are 10 times more potent than LSD? It makes it so even a fluffy bunny could go blood-thirsty. That, paired with the injection I just gave you, which will soon cause irreversible damage to your brain, selling the idea even more that you went insane. Maybe people will try to figure out what happened to you, but they never will. You will never be able to clear your name. People will always see you as a monster, and you will know what it feels like to be looked at with pity and fear,” he said.

He dropped the bloody knife in my trash can and left my apartment. I was paralyzed. My legs wouldn’t move, and I couldn’t even lift my fingers. My eyes started flooding with tears and there was nothing I could do. 

Three months later…

“You know he was a hot-shot surgeon, right?” a nurse said.

“No way. What happened to send him to the Prison for the Criminally Insane?” the intern said. 

“He went insane and killed his girlfriend, apparently, and no one knows why. I mean, he obviously can’t tell us why,” the nurse said as she looked at me with a look of pity in her eyes.

“Oh, right. Should I clean him up? He has drooled everywhere,” the intern said.

“Yes, and go ahead and just refill his feeding tube,” the nurse said.

This was my life now. I had had everything. Just one mistake and now I had been reduced to nothing. An entity that was not completely human anymore. A shell of myself that housed my consciousness. Unable to get out, trapped and locked away forever.