THE PATIENT IN ROOM 13
THE WATCHER’S HUNGER
Wednesday, October 18th – 3:00 PM
The tree was growing.
Sloane felt it before she saw it — a pressure in her chest, a warmth spreading through her veins, a whisper at the edge of her consciousness. The tree was not content to live in the chamber beneath the hospital. It was reaching out, stretching its roots into the world above, into the hospital, into the minds of the patients.
She stood in the corridor outside Iris’s room, her hand pressed to her chest, trying to calm the pounding of her heart.
“The tree is hungry,” Marian whispered. “It has been starved for so long. It needs to feed.”
“It fed on Greta’s memories,” another voice added. “On Vincent’s. On Iris’s. But it is not enough. It will never be enough.”
“What does it want?” Sloane thought.
“Everything. Everyone. All the forgotten. All the buried. All the erased.”
“That’s not possible.”
“The tree does not know impossibility. It only knows hunger.”
Sloane closed her eyes.
She reached inside herself, to the place where the tree lived, to the warmth that pulsed in her chest.
“You cannot have everything,” she thought. “You cannot have everyone. You must be patient.”
The warmth flared.
“I have been patient,” a voice answered. Not Marian’s. Not the child’s. Something older. Deeper. The voice of the tree itself. “I have been patient for centuries. I have waited. I have starved. I have been forgotten.”
“You are not forgotten. I remember you. I am the Keeper.”
“You are a vessel. A container. A temporary home. You will not last forever.”
“No one lasts forever. But while I am here, I will protect the memories. I will not let you consume the living.”
“You cannot stop me. I am part of you now. Your hunger is my hunger. Your need is my need.”
Sloane opened her eyes.
The corridor was empty.
But the walls seemed to pulse.
She walked to the nurses’ station.
The nurse behind the desk was named Patricia. She had been working at the hospital for twenty years and had seen everything. Or so she thought.
“Dr. Vance. You look pale. Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine. I need to see the admission logs for the past ten years.”
Patricia raised an eyebrow.
“Ten years? That’s a lot of files.”
“I know.”
“Can I ask what this is about?”
Sloane looked at the nurse. At her tired eyes. At her weary face. At the badge on her chest that said she had been working here since before Sloane was born.
“How many patients have died on this floor, Patricia? In the past ten years?”
Patricia’s face tightened.
“I don’t have those numbers.”
“Yes, you do. You’ve been here for twenty years. You’ve seen it all. You know how many.”
Patricia looked down at her hands.
“More than I can count.”
“How many were ruled suicides?”
“A dozen. Maybe more.”
“And how many were ruled natural causes?”
“Another dozen.”
“And how many were ruled accidents?”
“A handful.”
“And how many of those deaths were patients who spent time in Room 13?”
Patricia’s face went pale.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. Room 13. The sealed door. The room in the basement. The patients who were sent there as part of an experimental treatment program.”
“That program ended forty years ago.”
“Did it? Because I have files. Patient files. From the past six months. Patients who were assigned to Room 13.”
Patricia stood up.
“Where did you get those files?”
“From your filing cabinet.”
“You shouldn’t have those.”
“Why? Because they prove that the hospital has been covering up deaths for decades?”
Patricia walked around the desk.
She grabbed Sloane’s arm.
“You need to stop. Now. Before it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“Too late for you. The Watcher — it’s not just in the room anymore. It’s in the hospital. It’s in the staff. It’s in the patients. It’s everywhere.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I can see it. In the eyes of the people who have been touched by it. The same way I can see it in yours.”
Patricia released her arm.
“You’ve been to the room, haven’t you? You opened the door.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know what’s in there. The tree. The bodies. The memories.”
“Yes.”
“And you still came back?”
“The memories need a Keeper. I am the Keeper.”
Patricia shook her head.
“You’re not the Keeper. You’re the next meal.”
Sloane walked away from the nurses’ station.
Her mind was racing.
Patricia knew more than she was letting on. She had been at the hospital for twenty years. She had seen the deaths. She had seen the pattern. And she had done nothing.
Or had she?
“She tried to warn people,” Marian said. “She tried to tell the administration. They didn’t listen. They told her to keep quiet. They told her to forget.”
“And she did.”
“She did. But the memories didn’t. They stayed in her. Buried. Festering. Eating her from the inside.”
“She is like the patients. Forgotten. Buried. Alone.”
Sloane stopped.
She turned.
She walked back to the nurses’ station.
Patricia was sitting at the desk, her head in her hands.
“Patricia.”
The nurse looked up.
Her eyes were red.
“I’m sorry,” Patricia whispered. “I’m sorry I didn’t do more. I’m sorry I didn’t speak up. I’m sorry I let them die.”
“You tried to warn them. They didn’t listen. That’s not your fault.”
“I could have tried harder. I could have gone to the police. I could have gone to the media.”
“And they would have called you crazy. They would have said you were imagining things. They would have buried you the same way they buried the others.”
Patricia wiped her eyes.
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to tell me everything. The names of the patients who died. The doctors who treated them. The administrators who covered it up.”
“That’s a long list.”
“I have time.”
Patricia took a breath.
And she began to speak.
The list was longer than Sloane expected.
Dozens of names. Patients who had died in the psych ward over the past twenty years. Some were suicides. Some were accidents. Some were ruled natural causes.
But all of them had one thing in common.
They had all spent time in Room 13.
“There was a doctor,” Patricia said. “A psychiatrist. He was the one who started the experimental treatment program. He believed he could cure mental illness by helping patients confront their forgotten memories.”
“What was his name?”
“Dr. Arthur Vance.”
Sloane’s blood ran cold.
“My father?”
“Your father. He was brilliant. Dedicated. Obsessed. He believed that the room had healing properties. He didn’t know about the Watcher. Not at first.”
“When did he find out?”
“When patients started dying. At first, he thought it was coincidence. Then he thought it was negligence. Then he realized the truth.”
“He realized the room was killing them.”
“He realized something in the room was killing them. Something ancient. Something hungry. Something that had been waiting for centuries.”
“And what did he do?”
“He tried to stop it. He tried to seal the room. He tried to destroy the door. Nothing worked. The Watcher was too strong.”
“That’s when he started keeping the journals.”
“Yes. He wrote everything down. His theories. His fears. His hopes. He believed that one day, someone would find the journals and finish what he started.”
“That someone was me.”
“You are his daughter. His legacy. His hope.”
Sloane looked at the list of names.
Her father had tried to save these people.
And he had failed.
But she would not.