THE PATIENT IN ROOM 13
THE FIRST PATIENT RETURNS
Wednesday, October 18th – 9:15 AM
The psych ward was quiet when Sloane returned.
The morning rush had passed. The night staff had gone home. The day staff was settling into their routines, reviewing charts, administering medications, preparing for the endless cycle of assessments and interventions.
No one looked at her twice.
No one asked where she had been.
No one noticed that she was different.
Sloane walked to the nurses’ station. The woman behind the desk—a different nurse than the one who had given her Patient Zero’s file—looked up with tired eyes.
“Dr. Vance. You’re here early.”
“I never left.”
The nurse raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
“I need to see the admission logs for the past six months.”
“All of them?”
“All of them.”
The nurse hesitated. “That’s a lot of files. Administration might—”
“I’ll take full responsibility.”
The nurse studied her face.
“Are you okay, Dr. Vance? You look… different.”
“I’m fine. Just tired.”
The nurse nodded slowly. She stood up and walked to the filing cabinet in the corner.
Sloane watched her go.
The voices in her head were quiet. They had been quiet since she made peace with them, but she could still feel them there, lurking in the shadows of her mind, waiting. Not impatiently. Not hungrily. Just… waiting.
“She knows,” one of the voices whispered. Not the angry one. A softer voice. A woman’s voice. Marian Cross.
“Knows what?” Sloane thought.
“That you are not the same. That something has changed. That you are no longer just a doctor.”
“Is that going to be a problem?”
“It might be. The living fear what they cannot understand. And they cannot understand you anymore.”
The nurse returned with a stack of files.
“These are the admissions from the past six months. The ones we have, anyway. Some of the files were lost in the… well, after Patient Zero.”
“Lost how?”
“Administration said they were misplaced. But I think someone took them.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Someone with access. Someone who didn’t want anyone looking too closely at the patients who died.”
Sloane took the files.
“Thank you.”
She walked to the empty office where she had reviewed Patient Zero’s file and closed the door.
She sat down and began to read.
The admission logs were thorough.
Each file contained intake forms, treatment notes, medication records, and discharge summaries. For most patients, the discharge summary noted improvement, transfer to another facility, or discharge to home.
But for some, the discharge summary noted something else.
“Patient expired.”
Sloane counted them.
Twelve patients in six months.
Twelve deaths.
Officially, they were attributed to natural causes, accidents, or suicides. But Sloane knew better. She had seen the pattern before. The same pattern that had started with Marian Cross, continued with her father, and ended with Patient Zero.
She pulled out the file for the first death.
Patient Name: Daniel Reese
Date of Admission: April 3rd
Age: 38
Reason for Admission: Severe depression, suicidal ideation
Date of Death: April 17th
Cause of Death: Suicide by hanging
The file was thin. Too thin. There were no treatment notes from the week before his death. No incident reports. No witness statements.
She pulled out the next file.
Patient Name: Patricia Holloway
Date of Admission: May 12th
Age: 45
Reason for Admission: Anxiety, panic disorder, agoraphobia
Date of Death: May 28th
Cause of Death: Suicide by overdose
The same. Thin. Incomplete.
She pulled out another.
And another.
And another.
All of them were missing critical information. Notes. Reports. Statements.
Someone had been covering up the deaths.
Someone had known what was happening in the psych ward.
Someone had let it happen.
“The administrator,” Marian’s voice whispered. “The one who sealed the room. The one who told your mother to lie. The one who has been protecting the Watcher for forty years.”
“Who?”
“You know who. You have always known.”
Sloane closed the files.
She stood up.
She walked out of the office.
The administrator’s office was on the fifth floor, at the end of a long corridor lined with portraits of former hospital directors. The portraits were old, some of them dating back to the hospital’s founding in the late 1800s. Their faces were stern, their eyes watchful.
Sloane had never liked this corridor.
The portraits seemed to follow her as she walked. Their eyes tracked her movements, their lips seemed to curl into knowing smiles.
She knocked on the administrator’s door.
“Come in.”
The voice was familiar. She had heard it before. In meetings. In memos. In the way the hospital was run.
She opened the door.
The office was large, with windows that overlooked the city. A desk dominated the center of the room, made of dark wood, polished to a shine. Behind the desk, a woman.
Corinne Hale.
The night administrator. The woman who had called Sloane about Patient Zero’s death. The woman who had told her about her father. The woman who had warned her about Room 13.
“Sloane. I was wondering when you’d come.”
“You knew.”
“I knew you would figure it out. You’re too smart not to.”
“You knew about the deaths. You knew about the Watcher. You knew about my father.”
Corinne nodded slowly.
“I knew everything.”
“Then why didn’t you stop it?”
Corinne stood up.
She walked to the window.
“Because I couldn’t. The Watcher is not something you can stop. It’s not something you can kill. It’s not something you can reason with. It is a force of nature. Like gravity. Like time. Like death.”
“You could have warned people.”
“I did. I warned your mother. I warned the staff. I warned the patients. No one listened.”
“Because you didn’t tell them the truth.”
“The truth would have caused a panic. People would have died. More than died already.”
“People died anyway.”
“People always die. The Watcher makes sure of it. It feeds on death. It grows stronger with every passing.”
Sloane walked to the window.
She stood beside Corinne.
“The Watcher is not a force of nature. It’s a child. A child who was buried alive. A child who was forgotten.”
Corinne’s face tightened.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I saw her. In the tunnel. In the chamber. In the tree.”
“You went into the tunnel?”
“I went into the tunnel. I opened the door. I touched the tree.”
Corinne stepped back.
Her face was pale.
“Then you are the Keeper.”
“Yes.”
“The Watcher chose you.”
“Yes.”
Corinne sat down heavily in her chair.
“I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. I was hoping someone else would—”
“Would what? Die? Fail? Become another branch on the tree?”
“I was hoping the Watcher would go back to sleep. I was hoping the deaths would stop.”
“The deaths will never stop. Not as long as the Watcher is hungry. Not as long as there are people who are willing to forget.”
“And what do you propose to do about it?”
Sloane looked out the window.
The city was waking. Cars moved through the streets. People walked on the sidewalks. Life was happening.
“I’m going to help them remember.”