Nikita

The room suddenly gets cold and quieter. My ears are ringing, my head spinning, and I feel like I'm so close to tapping out. None of this is okay. The confusion makes me feel like there's a drug sprayed in the room.

It takes me a while to get a hold of myself and remind myself that I am doing this for myself darn the self-love. I'm starting to doubt whether this is self-love or just me and my curiosity fighting. Who could have ever expected this?

I turned on the TV alright, but everything I watched got me in this particular state.

I can swear that I eat healthy food. Of course, I'm very aware of my depression, but this is not the result of all that. This is what we call shock. Or maybe it's a stroke, damn, I'm still too young to have a stroke. I haven't even had a girlfriend or boyfriend.

Man, I don't even have a friend I can rely on, so this is just not it for me. But my body refuses to function. So I sit myself down on the larger couch because somehow my brain seems to think there isn't enough space for me, but a whole doctor's lair, surely that has to be big enough.

I feel like the walls are closing on me, warning me, reminding me that I shouldn't have been curious. Somehow I feel like Natalya is in the same room as me, which is way too paranoid considering I haven't left this room since the surgery.

I'm still locked in here too, so that's impossible. The inevitable finally happened. I finally got to watch the contents of the memory card, and I want to disappear. Like really really yeet myself into a whole different universe, where I'm with my family.

Maybe I could study the theory of parallel universes.

Fuck, I'm zoning out again.

Graciously, I walk to the water dispenser, because at this point, water seems like the best solution. I don't feel like diagnosing myself though if I was to do that, I would diagnose myself with the post-betrayed disorder.

Shit.

Back to the video that keeps playing on my tv, I wonder whether I was seriously born on a different threshold because it seems like I was unaware of so many things. Why couldn't they tell me all of this anyway?

I had no idea all of this had been happening, maybe I could have stopped it. Maybe I could have ensured everything was smooth and nothing went astray, but what's the point of all that now? I'm left without a family.

I try convincing myself that maybe I misunderstood the contents of the card, and that's why I press play, pause, rewind for the next two hours.

Maybe I'm hoping that the contents of the memory card will change.

Maybe I'm waiting for someone to pop up on the screen and be like, "Valha" but nothing happens.

This is a reality that I wasn't made aware of.

This is the pain that they all had to endure, a pain that I could have controlled if they had just let me.

I feel lost when no one shows up and tells me this was some sort of prank.

Not even Yuri pops up.

I realize that no one inside the video is going to show up and tell me it was a prank, so I hope that the people in the hospital have noticed I've been gone for sixteen hours, but not even my annoying director shows up in the office.

Maybe no one comes to look for me because they ȧssume I went home. But what is home? Where is home?

My home has been transformed into what I can't even think of right now. I wonder what Natalya and her daughter are doing now, auctioning my property? Or making the ȧssets theirs? I don't really care for the ȧssets, but the anger in me is thinking otherwise.

The fact that this happened.

The fact that I had to watch the horror just reminds me of why I need to protect my family and everything around it. I'm still leaving Todorov though. Maybe I should go in and have surgery or maybe I should help Maggie with the rounds.

Maybe that will help. So I get up, leaving everything as it is. I look like shit, but I have looked worse, so this isn't an issue. Anyone who wants me to change, can come and explain themselves or submit their request in writing only to watch me shred it.

Carefully, I lock my office door, confirming it more than thrice. I can't have anyone viewing the contents I just saw. It would be hard to explain. No one would understand me, let alone if the police show up.

I make it to the elevator, having gotten tired of greeting the children.

They are always adorable, but right now, they look like some pesky little creatures in my case. To avoid any more interactions with the children, I put on my mask and hang my stethoscope on my neck. That shit always works every time.

It makes the kids believe I'm going for an urgent doctor matter, but it's just me avoiding them, not that they will ever know. I wave at them and eventually the elevator dings and I can finally have some space alone.

Well, my office was some good space, but now, it haunts me. It makes me feel like shit for not reading the signs when they were right in front of me. For a moment there, I don't blame Natalya for thinking I was stupid.

With my three medical degrees and two PhDs, I am the most stupid person in this hospital. The elevator stops at the first floor, and a pretty nurse gets in. if this was any other time, I could have made a pass at her just to get myself off.

It's always no strings attached between the staff in this hospital. Don't get me wrong though, we're not a brothel, but sometimes the only one who can help you out is a colleague. She looks beautiful with her hair neatly tied in a ponytail yet she reminds me of my sister, what the fuċk.

I miss little Raisa.

She was so kind, my sister was an angel, but she's not coming back. She's dead and I didn't even get to bury the bodies. The elevator door closes and I think of my sister.

Nothing will make me feel any better than seeing my family. But then the video I just watched keeps replaying in my head. I feel like this is really the definition of haunted, but that doesn't come close to what I see when the elevator finally stops on the ground floor.

Someone kill me, please.