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Forty-One Thursdays

sci-fi◐ Teen
5 contributors · 3 paragraphs deep

Maren yanks her wrist free and steps back. This is just an exhausted brain playing tricks, she tells herself. She has slept badly for forty days. She won't play along. She marches to the nurses' station to log the incident and prove she is still sane.

At the station, Maren opens the incident log and freezes. Yesterday's entry is already there, in her own handwriting: "Bed 9 spoke. He warned me. I didn't listen. Day 40." Her hands go cold. She has written this before and forgotten. She runs back toward Ward C.

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A possible continuation

Maren reaches Bed 9 at 6:48. Sol is sitting up, waiting. "You read it," he says. "You always do, eventually. Forty times." He hands her a small key. "This opens the panel behind my bed. Inside is a red switch. That's the only way out. Hurry."

DH
Dov Hale
3 votes · future 1 of 1