INTRODUCTION

The feel of dripping water cools his dry lips as he slowly awakens from what feels like a bad hangover. His eyes still feel too heavy to open but the sounds are getting very clear. Slow rhythmic screeches of rusty metal and the random eerie buzzing of fluorescent lamps almost cover the distant desperate screams of a woman. He still can't tell if she's crying or shouting out of fear, though it doesn't seem like she's in any immediate danger. She justs keeps screaming. It sounds like the word 'baby', but he can't be sure.

He opens his eyes to see the ceiling of a dark hospital room. The broken fluorescent lamp occasionally flashes to reveal a broken intravenous bottle dripping on top of his face. He yet has to regroup his thoughts and figure out how he got there.

Now it all comes back to him like a punch in the head. Sudden depression, what happens every time he wakes up to remember who he is and what kind of life he wakes up to again. His name is Mat. A nobody. A loser, professionally, socially and in any aspect conceivable. Lives alone in a wreck of a studio, no friends, no future. He's having trouble piecing the puzzle together. How did he end up in a hospital? What's going on? What was his last memory? He's sure he could think clearer if it wasn't for that splitting headache.

He tries to sit up. Damn! What pain! Is he hurt? Was he in an accident? Right now the only thing he can focus on is the distant screaming of a woman he probably doesn't even know. Come on, stand up! He makes it, with a lot of effort, with his face tightened, suppressing the pain. Intravenous lines inside his left arm cause even more pain as he moves without considering them. Slowly, he takes the intravenous bottle off the stand. The letters are too small to read in the near darkness of small empty hospital room. Besides, his vision is still very blurry. What the hell happened last night?

He slowly pulls the lines out of his vanes and exits the room into a narrow hallway to find the same kind of darkness. Lights off except for a couple of flashing and buzzing fluorescent lamps. The screeching noise is from the chains holding the lamps which swing in a pendulum motion. He can't tell from which direction the screams are coming from.

"Hello? Anybody?", he faintly asks.

Is there no one here? What kind of hospital is this? He gradually navigates through the narrow corridors, the halls, passing by empty rooms and administration desks that seem recently used. The screams of the mysterious woman continue but not as frequent as before.

"Hello?!", he says, this time louder.

Then is comes to him. What if he shouldn't be shouting? What if he is in danger and should keep his position hidden? He freezes as he makes this realization and feels the reality around him. Signs of probable struggle or disaster. People missing, someone's obviously in trouble. What the hell is going on, Mat?

A noise in the shadows takes his breath, yet he cannot move or say anything. He feels trapped, doomed. He's starting to panic, his heartbeat climbs. Small unidentified sounds complete a setting of absolute suspense and terror. Are those whispers? Is he getting crazy as he always suspected he would get? This is obviously a madhouse, like the ones in the movies, the ones they make an effort to constitute as terrifying as possible. And the sounds are illusions, probably from the medication or from his demented state. He doesn't believe that. Who believe themselves psychotic? He takes a deep breath, as if to gather courage to prove himself not crazy, and moves into the darkness. The buzzing screeching lamps randomly flash as they slowly swing here and there, whispers follow him and a woman screams every now and then from no apparent direction. Just now he notices he's only wearing a white hospital gown stained with blood, probably his own, from his needle-pierced arm. He slowly walks, his bare feet stepping on some thick liquid. It could be blood, definitely not his own. Not important now. He slowly walks. And the darkness swallows him.