My eyes flew open and I sucked in a deep gulp of air only to choke on a tube in my nose. What is this? What’s going on? Where am I? I looked around the room soaking up everything I laid eyes on.

The floors were black and white tiles that showed years of age. The walls were a faded off-white. Machinery sat near the old-looking hospital bed, the heart monitor measuring my quick choppy beats. A noise started to irritate my ears.

A man with a long white lab coat, wispy white hair, and a clip board in arm came rushing in.

“You must lie down!” he said franticly to me in his thick accent. He rushed to my bed side and helped me down again. He shut the noise of the machine off. The pain in my ears was no more.

I watched the man with cautious eyes. He printed something from one of the machines then scribbled on his clip board. Then without a word or a glance he left the room.

I arched my eyebrows. I know I don’t know a lot, but I’m pretty sure doctors-if that’s what he was-took a bit more care of their patients and asked more questions, and ran more test, and sometimes they even hit you in the knee with a hammer.

But what do I know?

Well, I know that I have no idea where I am at. I have no memory of anything within the past—well; I can’t even tell you how long it’s been because I don’t even know what day it is.

The last thing I remember is waking up in my crummy old apartment to a crummy old boyfriend then going to my crummy old job. That was Monday.

And now, here I lay in a hospital that I don’t even know the name of, with a doctor that seems to be out of his mind, and my thoughts all over the place.

The heart monitor made a long drowning sound and then my head was filled with silent darkness.