#cw: bright lights | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

friendlyneighborhoodhorrornerd · 1 year ago

Text

"Mercury Tubes"

Content Warnings: bright lights, hospital (although no explicit medical scenes), mental illness

“Let’s start with your name.”

“Vee—Silvia Jones.”

I looked up, cocking my head. “Vee?”

“M-My friends call me Vee.”

“Would you prefer me to call you that?”

She looked away, nodding slightly.

I nodded, checking off boxes as I moved down the list. “Age?”

“Seventeen.”

“What year is it?”

“Twenty-twenty-three.”

“Good, good.” As far as I knew, she was lucid as soon as she had woken up, but I needed to be sure, especially considering some of what she had told me already. “Alright, Vee, why don’t you start from the beginning. What do you remember happening, exactly?”

She tensed up, shrinking into herself.

“Vee?”

“…you won’t believe me.”

I sighed, placing the clipboard down next to me and leaning forward in my seat. “Why are you worried about that?”

“Because you won’t.”

I paused, choosing my next words carefully. “I promise, I fully intend to take your health concerns seriously—”

“It’s not about that,” She huffed. “It’s just…”

I waited.

“You’ve got plenty of crazies coming in here, right? Telling you crazy stories of aliens and… underground lizard people?”

I leaned back, crossing my arms. “We… occasionally get people coming in with more out-there claims.”

“And what do you tell them?”

I exhaled. “Usually, such claims that directly clash with reality indicate that a patient requires further help and intervention, such as more comprehensive psychiatric care.”

She looked down, unsatisfied with that answer.

“Vee,” I started slowly, “are you concerned that telling me what you experienced is going to make me think you’re—”

“Crazy?”

“In need of psychiatric care.” I corrected.

She stared at me. “Well, are you?”

I took off my glasses and met her gaze. “I don’t know what you’re going to tell me, so I cannot make any judgements or diagnoses yet. However,” I paused, “unless there is any indication that you pose a threat to yourself or others, any psychiatric care I might recommend would simply be in the form of therapy, and will not be enforced against your will. More than that, I will likely recommend it no matter what you tell me happened. You have been through a traumatic experience, and having some lingering psychological effects would not be surprising, so there is nothing wrong with needing a therapist to get through those.”

Vee was quiet for a moment.

“So… you’re not gonna institutionalize me?”

“Not without a very compelling reason.”

She went quiet again.

I placed my hand on the end of the bed. “Please, Vee, I want to help you. You’ve been through a lot, and I want to support you in recovering from that. But I need you to tell me what happened if I’m going to be able to do that.” I paused, waiting for her to react. “Do you think you can do that for me.”

She stared at the foot of the hospital bed for a moment as she started to think. “I was sitting outside of the counselor’s office, I think. She had wanted to talk to me about my grades after school, but was busy with another student, so I had to wait outside. It wasn’t that late, maybe 3:15 or so? Still, the school already seemed pretty empty. The hallways were silent apart from the humming fluorescent lights and the occasional lone student getting something from their locker. My phone was dead, so I didn’t have much to pass the time. I sorta thought about getting started on homework and stuff, but I didn’t think it’d be any more interesting than just staring at a wall.” She chuckled. “Probably has something to do with why I was there in the first place.”

She took a breath.

“I think… the first thing that felt off was… the clock.”

“The clock?” It seemed out of place to me.

“Yeah, on the wall in front of me. I’d check it every so often as I waited, trying to keep my mind off of the meeting, and it seemed… inconsistent? Like, sometimes it felt like forever and only a couple minutes would tick by, or I’d turn my head for a second and lose 15 minutes. A few times I could’ve sworn it was earlier than the last time I had checked, like it had gone backwards. Once I tried to count with it, closing my eyes and trying to keep in time for exactly 60 seconds, but when I opened my eyes, I swear it was the same moment as when I had started.”

“Hmm.” I tapped my pen. That mostly just sounds like anxiety, I thought, but I might want to wait for the bloodwork before saying anything for sure. It’s possible there’s something that was affecting her.

She stopped, looking as if she was expecting me to diagnose her then and there.

“Sorry. Please, continue.”

She exhaled, almost in relief. “I figured I must have been imagining things from the stress, so I-I went over to the fountain to get some water. It tasted… vaguely metallic? Like it was full of quarters or something. It was cold, too. I remember shuddering as I swallowed. Then…” She stopped, trying to determine whether or not she should continue. “For a second, I thought I saw a faint flash of light out of the corner of my eye, but when I looked up, I couldn’t see anything.”

She looked back at me, waiting for a reaction. It didn’t seem very outlandish to me—from what I was told beforehand about what happened, it lines up perfectly as an early indication of the risk. The way she looked at me, though, made me think she saw it as an indication of something much worse.

I nodded, indicating for her to continue.

“I went back to my seat, feeling a little better, but I was still extremely fidgety; I couldn’t stop my leg from shaking no matter how hard I tried, and my feet started to feel tingly after a while.”

“I think it was then that I noticed how much the lights above me were flickering. They seemed almost regular, pulsing every few seconds with a loud buzz.” She shuddered. Evidently, recounting this part was painful, and I couldn’t blame her.

“Do you want to stop? We can pick this up later if you—"

She cut me off. “I looked down the hallway and saw that the rest of them were doing the same thing, brightening and dimming in time with each other. The hallway looked a lot longer than I thought it was, too, glowing lines blurring together as they got further and further, coalescing into a single point of light in the distance.” Her stare got even more vacant as she spoke, as she was no longer here, but was back in the hallway experiencing it all over again.

“Then the lights pulsed again, and the point looked to be ever so slightly closer.”

I tapped my pen against the clipboard, trying to hide my own growing nervousness.

“I stood up, staring down the hallway. It seemed to appear as the lights brightened and faded as they dimmed, each time a few doors further along. I couldn’t see any source, but it seemed to bob up and down, as though held by someone walking down the corridor.”

“Slowly I began backing towards the counselor’s office, struggling to stay upright on my shaking legs. Not taking my eyes off the light, I knocked on the door a few times. I didn’t care if she had another meeting, I needed to get out of that hallway.” Her hands were gripping the sheets, knuckles white. Mine were too as I squeezed the pen, trying to keep her from noticing my reactions. She didn’t need me adding to the stress.

She paused, staring into space. I didn’t want to make her continue if it was causing her this much pain, but she seemed to be determined to tell the story, so I wasn’t going to stop her. The details didn’t seem to be adding up with what I was told from the scene, but I didn’t want to interrupt her, so I gestured for her to continue. “Did she open the door?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“I turned and banged on the door again, more forcefully. Again, nothing. I tried to twist the handle, but it wouldn’t budge, locked from the inside. I turned back to the hallway and saw that the light now resolved itself into the vague shape of a person, tall and glowing with the same white as the lights, slowly walking forward with a blood-chilling determination as I kept slamming my fists against the door. As it walked, it pulsed with the lights overhead, gradually getting closer and closer until it was only 6 rooms away.”

“That’s when the door to the counselor’s office finally opened, and suddenly Mrs. Doyle was hovering over me, confused and irritated.”

“Wait, so you spoke to Mrs. Doyle?”

She nodded. “I looked back down the hallway. The lights were back to normal, and the thing that was approaching was nowhere to be seen. I even saw a few kids hanging out towards the end of the corridor that I could’ve sworn weren’t there a second ago. Ms. Doyle asked if I was alright, gesturing into the room, and I apologized and walked in.”

“…huh. That’s…” Vee looked back at me, concerned. I waved. “Nevermind, it doesn’t matter.”

Vee started again. “She sat down across from me and pulled out a file folder, and started going through my record. She started talking to me about various dips in my grades, repeating what teachers had told her, that sort of thing. I nodded along and absentmindedly responded to what she said, but for the most part, I watched the light in the ceiling. Every time it flickered I held my breath, waiting for the same pulsing to start again. Eventually, she took notice, and sternly asked if I was paying attention. I told her of course I was, I just had a lot on my mind, which seemed to be enough for her.”

“She continued, and this time I really tried to listen. I kept my eyes off of the light, but I could still see its reflection in her glasses, so I immediately noticed when…” She took a deep breath, trying to keep herself under control. “…when it started to pulse, again.”

“The light in the counselor’s office?”

Vee nodded. “The same rhythm as outside. I tried to ignore it, but it got more and more intense until I could barely keep my eyes open from the glare. I looked up at it, and—and—“ She started hyperventilating. I got up next to the head of her bed and put my hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her down. After a minute, her breathing slowed, but remained shaky. I handed her a glass of water from the bedside table, which she took a sip of with shaking hands.

“I think this is probably enough for today. Why don’t we—”

“A hand.”

“Sorry?”

“There was a hand. Coming from the light. It had long, pointed fingers and pulsed with the light as it tried to reach out towards me.” She rubbed the burn marks on her arm.

I sat back down.

“I fell backwards in my chair, nearly knocking myself out on the door. Mrs. Doyle was too shocked to respond, so I took the chance and just… ran. I threw open the door and bolted down the hallway. As I looked behind me, I saw multiple glowing figures, I think 5 or 6? They were of varying sizes, some around my height, others needing to hunch to keep below the ceilings. They were like…” She pauses, thinking of an adequate description. “In chemistry last year, we did an experiment with burning magnesium where the teacher told us we couldn’t look directly at it for long cause we might seriously damage our eyes. They were like that, this… overwhelming white light, the pulsing getting faster and faster.”

“I tried to keep running, but I was stumbling a lot, barely able to keep my balance, and when I turned a corner, I came face to face with one of the figures. I could feel the heat coming off of it, and when it grabbed my arm—” she tensed her right arm, the five long burn marks seeming like fingers tightening around her skin, “it felt like my skin was being seared through. I tried to scream, but it was like the heat was burning the air from my lungs as he pushed me against a wall. He cocked his head and, somehow, he smiled at me. His face didn’t change, there were no discernable features in the pulsing light, but I could just… feel it.” Her breath was growing faster as she started gripping the covers again. “H-he… he held his other hand up, and slowly covered my face with it, and I-I felt the heat searing into my eyes. I tried to scream, but the air was being burned out of me before I could, and my lungs felt like they were filling with smoke as my insides were seared.”

I waited a moment, holding my clipboard so tight it nearly snapped in my hands.

“And then… I just woke up, I think. That was the last thing I remember before the hospital.”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding in. The story had affected me a lot more than I thought it would, so I tried to recenter myself in my chair. “And you… haven’t had anything like this happen since then?”

She shook her head. “Nothing at the hospital, although there’s a reason I asked to be moved to a room with more natural light.”

I nodded absentmindedly.

“So… any diagnoses? Still committing to that ‘not gonna lock me up’ bit?” She chuckled, hiding a very real fear behind her laugh.

“Hm? Oh, no, there’s still no reason for that at all.”

“Well, any kind of idea why I saw what I saw?”

“I, uh…” I thought for a moment. “It’s possible it’s a symptom of some psychiatric illness, but you have no history of anything before this, so I doubt you’d be experiencing such complicated hallucinations so quickly. I think it’s more likely you were exposed to some kind of hallucinogen.”

She turned pale. “I—I don’t do drugs or anything, I promise, I’m clean—”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean like that.” I shook my head. “Even if you had, it’s not my job to lecture you for that, just to make sure you have the right treatment. I’m more worried about accidental exposure, especially because it could mean there’s something in the rest of the school.”

She breathed a sigh of relief.

“For now, just focus on getting some rest. I’ll let you know when we get more conclusive results from the bloodwork.”

She nodded.

I got up and made my way to the door. Before leaving, I stopped by the light switch. “On, or—”

“Off, please.”

I nodded, flipping the fluorescent light above the bed off, and made my way out.

As I walked down the hospital hallway, small details began to swirl in my mind, none of them adding up. She said she had gone to the meeting and remembers having a conversation with Mrs. Doyle. But Mrs. Doyle said that the meeting hadn’t happened. According to her, she found Sylvia outside the counseling office door knocked unconscious by a collapsing fluorescent light before the meeting was scheduled to start, so maybe she dreamt it? It’s one thing for her to have hallucinated strange light people, but a counselor’s appointment? And one that didn’t seem… surreal? That didn’t make sense for a dream. And the burn marks. I know they’re just from the filaments in the light, but… it’s still somewhat eerie that she saw one of the beings grab her right where the burn marks were. I guess it would make some sense for her mind to have made up some explanation, like when you dream you’re drowning when your cat sleeps on your chest.

I walked into one of the break rooms, hoping that coffee would help me think more clearly, but yelped and nearly fell over seeing a bright figure sitting in one of the chairs around the table. It only took a second, though, for me to realize the glowing was just a trick of the light reflecting off of the blond hair and white lab coat of Dr. O’Connor, the primary doctor treating Vee.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you just startled me a bit—”

“I think I’ve got a diagnosis.” he said flatly, his back still towards me. He held up a piece of paper. “Bloodwork came back,” he tossed the paper back on the table, “and showed high levels of mercury in her blood. The light fixture was an old mercury bulb that had never been replaced. Must’ve been leaking stuff into the air that she breathed in before it collapsed.”

I went over to the coffee machine as I mulled it over. “Are you sure? A lot of what she described didn’t seem—”

“Did she mention a metallic taste in her mouth?”

“…yes… yes, I think she did.”

“Tremors? Tingling? Coordination difficulties?”

“I… I think so.”

“Like I said, mercury poisoning. I’ll take this to some specialists so we can get started on chelation therapy, if you can get me your psychiatric report. Hopefully, Sylvia will be back on her feet and free of this in no time.” With this, he got up and briskly walked out of the room.

I didn’t follow him.

I didn’t keep going down the hall, trying to get his attention to ask more questions. I didn’t try to explain that it’d be extremely unlikely to have this level of exposure to mercury in such a short period of time, nor did I ask how it explained the hallucinations. I didn’t tell him that we owed it to her to not just take the first explanation and to make sure we’ve accounted for everything. I didn’t tell him that if she did have mercury poisoning, it was likely far more significant than one fluorescent bulb, and likely indicated more regular exposure that needed to be investigated.

I should’ve. I would’ve, on any other day with any other patient. Dr. O’Connor had a record of dismissing patients’ issues, especially female ones. This diagnosis seemed far too rushed, and I was worried he was about to make that mistake again.

But as he left, I got a glimpse at his face.

It’s possible it was just a trick of the light reflecting off of his glasses, exacerbated by my own nervousness and the story I had just heard. That’s what I would tell any of my patients, had they told me the same thing.

But no matter what I tell myself, the image is still burned into my eyes.

“Like burning magnesium,” Vee had said. I did the same experiment in my high school chemistry class; I know what that light looks like.

And I saw that same light coming from Dr. O’Connor’s eyes.

So instead, I stayed in the break room, my hand shaking so much as to nearly spill my coffee as the fluorescent lights pulsed overhead.

#cw: mental illness #cw: hospital #cw: bright lights #original story

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