Chapter Text
There’s a scent that’s unique to hospitals.
It’s not necessarily the smell of the hand sanitizer that’s actively being put on, the lingering sweat of patients, the perfume of relatives coming in and out for visits, or the wafts of whatever was on the lunch menu.
Or maybe it was all of those combined and more.
Regardless, it was a smell that you can only find at a hospital.
And I’m beginning to get really tired of it.
From the moment my eyes opened to the moment they shut, it’s all that I could smell.
It had gotten to the point where I told my parents to buy a pack of air freshener just so I could smell linen or tangerines, something other than whatever was lingering here, but apparently it wasn’t allowed.
Something to do with the chemicals in the bottle.
One could argue that the Clorox sheets the staff used to clean the room had more chemicals than a bottle of air freshener but I chose to keep my mouth shut.
I learned on day three that arguing with overworked nurses was not the best decision one could make.
I sighed before turning around to fix my pillows. They were all squished from how much I moved in my sleep.
I settled in more comfortably before looking out the window.
It was 10:15am.
Everyone else was going about their day while I was spending my 54th morning at the hospital.
After realizing two minutes in that looking out the window was boring, I began moving my eyes around the room as though something had changed after my night’s rest.
It didn’t.
My room was the same as it was the night before.
It still had the odd silence to it that no amount of visits could seem to get rid of.
It was also silence that I had the unfortunate problem of getting used to.
School was in session so my friends could only visit me over the weekend and a person could only visit so often when the patient barely had any progress in recovery.
My parents used to come by all the time and it began to get annoying past the second week.
The constant look of worry from my parents would anger me. It made me lash out and yell to the point where staff had to come in and calm me down.
It was after that, that they decided to only come when I told them to.
An angry kid was what the nurses described me to be.
They said it wasn’t my fault, that they’ve seen many kids like me. They couldn’t blame me, not when my life took a complete 180 and changed for the worst.
Anger was a normal reaction.
It was a normal reaction for a 17 year old to have when they get told that they have stage 3 leukemia.
It was a normal reaction for a 17 year old to have when they get told that they can’t go outside without a nurse monitoring them.
It was a normal reaction for a 17 year old to have when they get told that they wouldn’t be going to school anymore and graduating with their friends.
But the anger turned into sadness at some point.
It turned when I realized that the diagnosis wasn’t really a surprise.
The mornings where I’d get up and fall right back into bed because of how dizzy I felt. The shortness of breath that was odd for someone who was on the track team and ran laps around the school on a daily basis. The sheets were soaked in sweat when it wasn’t hot at all.
They were all signs that I ignored.
Maybe, just maybe, if I went to the doctors earlier, they would’ve caught it at an earlier stage and I wouldn’t be stuck in this room.
My life became full of what-ifs.
What if I had done this? What if I hadn’t done that?
A constant question in my mind on how life could’ve been different had I just gone to the doctors earlier.
Instead, I continued life and collapsed on the road one afternoon when walking home from school. Bleeding from my head and knees wasn’t enough. No, I had to be hit with the worst news ever when I woke up and was told my diagnosis.
It was from then that my life was controlled by medications and test results.
And pills.
Lots of pills.
My thoughts were broken when I heard someone knocking on my door.
Once, twice.
“Come in.”
A middle aged nurse walked in with breakfast and my daily medication.
“Good morning, Ryul,” she said, setting up the foldable table near my bedside. ““How are you feeling?”
“The same as yesterday.”
She hummed, placing the food down.
“The boy in Room 113 wants to talk to you.”
Not this again.
I sighed out, not wanting to be rude to the nurse, but it really gets to a point.
“Can you please tell him that I don’t want to talk. Not now. Not ever.”
The nurse nodded her head.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
Before walking out of the room, she turned around and looked back at me.
“I do think that talking to him would be good. You can’t be cooped up in bed all day,” she said in a tone that felt too motherly, full of warmth. “He’s sweet, Ryul. I think you’d be good friends.”
She then left and my room was back to its usual quiet.
Room 113 was apparently occupied by a boy my age. The nurses must’ve told him about me, and ever since, he’s been wanting to talk to me.
The nurses thought it was a great idea. We were the same age. Hell, even our names were similar.
Ohyul and Ryul.
The only problem was, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him or anyone here.
He was persistent though, I can give him that.
For the past two months, he’s been asking the nurses to tell me that he wanted to talk. I said no every time but he kept asking.
It was only a matter of time before he gave up.
One can only get denied so much.
I picked up a fork and started picking at the eggs. I doused it in ketchup. It was the only thing that made it taste edible.
The food wasn’t so bad. It could definitely be better though.
The orange juice was plain, no added sugars, and the taste made me wince every morning.
It brought a sad thought to mind.
I wondered how many times I could eat eggs and ketchup before I lost my mind. I felt as though I was on the edge of a bridge every morning. I wanted to escape this misery but there was no way out.
The doctors’ beat around the bush when talking about my progress. The reason was because there was none.
It seemed as though the medications went inside me and came right out. They had no effect whatsoever and I was beginning to get tired.
The thoughts were taking up every part of my mind. I hated when I got like this, like sadness was the only emotion that I was now programmed to feel.
I dropped the fork before leaning back against the pillows. I placed the plate on the nightstand near me. I knew better than to leave the plate half empty. I needed my fruits and vegetables but I lost my hunger, something that was happening more often.
I took the cup with my medication inside and swallowed it down dry. Folding the table and pushing it away as far as I could without getting out of bed, I laid down wanting to go back to sleep.
The doctors mentioned that sleeping right after eating wasn’t the best. Something to do with acid reflux and indigestion but I couldn’t explain to them that sleeping was my only escape.
It was the only time that my mind wasn’t heavy. I was spending every hour of my day thinking about the life I used to live, and how different my life is now.
I felt as though I was living in a time loop. Every day felt the same and it was bringing me nothing but immense sadness, sadness that I felt in every part of me.
I couldn’t tell the doctors or nurses any of this. If I did, they’d schedule me with therapists and I didn’t want any of that.
I wanted to be alone but being alone left me with my thoughts.
I closed my eyes, covering myself in the blanket.
I could only pray that I woke up from this nightmare, that this was all a bad night’s dream and that it wasn’t real.
But it was very much real and nothing was going to change any time soon.