D for Dysphoria

An impossible scenario to wake up to...but a very possible ending.

D for Dysphoria

There wasn’t anything particularly different about her headache. Karen had felt these things before; she was used to them. She would wake up every morning in her damp studio apartment with a migraine that would last the entire day if she didn’t take her meds to calm them down.

 

Was that what had happened?

 

There wasn’t anything different about the headache, but the scene before her proved a different situation entirely. There was no denying that heavy smell of hand sanitizer and despair; she was in a hospital. She was lying on one of those weird cots, curtain drawn around her, clad in one of those odd gowns and covered in bandaged and dressed welts and bruises.

 

Of course, there was an explanation. She had a habit of fainting from time to time due to the headaches. She must have just done so at the wrong place…like a flight of stairs or something. That would explain the bandages on her head, arms and legs. She must have hit her head really hard. She supposed that it was going to happen to her eventually, fainting in the wrong place and ending up like a bruised fruit on a hospital bed. But she had never fainted in the middle of the day, only at night, when the meds wore off. And she never skipped her meds. Never. And now she was in the hospital, waking up to…to…

 

To people?

 

“Karen!” A woman breathed in utter relief, “Oh, darling, thank God you are alright!”

 

“We were so worried.” Another voice cried.

 

Karen blinked, but her vision was still slightly blurry. Still, how had she missed the shapes around her, watching her like she was a specimen in a laboratory waiting to be experimented on? Karen was normally a very observant person. She had to be, seeing as her lifestyle wasn’t exactly the safest. She wouldn’t have missed a gathering of a good five to ten people standing around her in a hospital of all places.

 

Especially if they were all strangers.

 

“Who…?” Her mouth was too dry to talk. The word came out like a failed attempt at a hiss, and she looked around her surroundings for water. A random person handed her a plastic glass with a straw and she graciously accepted it, but still drank the tasteless essence of life with a slightly reluctance.

 

“Karen, do you know who we are?” The same voice asked again, “Can you tell me my name?”

 

Karen grimaced, and shook her head, clutching the glass tightly, “I don’t know you.”

 

“What about me?” The second voice asked, “Tell me my name, Karen. You know you know me.”

 

“I don’t know you, I’m sorry.” Karen licked her lips, feeling how dry they were, “Please, I would like to be alone.”

 

“Karen…”

 

“Leave me alone. I don’t know you.”

 

“Karen, please.”

 

“I would like to be alone now…”

 

The words came out in a slur, and she was sure that they had not understood. She hardly understood herself speaking. She drank some more water, but that did nothing to help her dry throat, so she angrily threw the cup on the ground and pounded her fists on the bed. Her head split open with a wild fury, and it was all she could do to not scream.

 

“Karen! Karen!” A man’s voice cut in amongst the worried voices of those around her, “Karen, please tell me you remember me.”

 

Karen shook her head, still feeling the pain. She shut her eyes to avoid looking at the source of the voice. All of these people were crazy. She had had her fair share of hallucinations, they came often with the migraines…but she didn’t know that they could be this vivid. She didn’t recall ever being able to have a conversation with her hallucinations, they came and went so fast.

 

But the pain remained.

 

“Karen, it’s me.” The voice said again, the pain in his voice evident, “It’s Daniel. I’m your husband.”

 

That was the last straw. She didn’t have a husband and she damned this man for mocking her solitude. She opened her eyes and fixed a deadly glare on him and the people that stood behind him, her teeth working their way into a snarl.

 

“I don’t know you!” She snapped, “You’ve got the wrong girl. Get out!”

 

“Karen, you know me.”

 

“I don’t! Get out! Nurse!” She screamed, “Nurse get these people out!”

 

The man before her was trying to calm her down, the people behind him were panicking, her head was splitting and her eyes were flowing over with tears of frustration, pain, fear, anger and confusion.

 

She’s too far gone.

 

It’s driving her mad.

 

She needs to be hospitalized.

 

She needs to take the medication.

 

She cannot skip a single day or the consequences…

 

“Karen…” the man begged, “Karen, please look at me. Remember me. I love you, Karen.”

 

She opened her mouth to tell him and the people that she had no husband or any family and that they had the wrong girl, but then something struck her like a tidal wave. It was a realization that knocked the breath right out of her.

 

Skip or consequences…meds…skip…fall…headache…husband…meds…meds…meds!

 

She had skipped her meds this morning. They kept the headaches away and made her days easier. When they wore off, then she would go to sleep. The meds kept her awake and the pain at bay.

 

She had no husband. The hand she felt grasping hers was a stranger. The soothing words came from a man she didn’t know, and his tear were as foreign to her as his face. His love was a fiction.

 

The meds…she had skipped them.

 

She had been too tired to go down the stairs. She was going to take the elevator. She had decided at the last minute and turning around made her dizzy…

 

So dizzy…

 

She had fallen…yes, down the stairs. Every single one until she reached the platform.

 

That was it.

 

She had skipped her meds.

 

She was waking up without her medications. This was no hallucination. Everything was as real as the thing growing in her head. She was in a hospital because she had never been home. She fell down the stairs in the hospital. She had woken up in the hospital.

 

She had never left the hospital. The meds sat on the table next to her, waiting to be taken. She felt her headache slowly ebbing away, even though the meds had not moved. She hadn’t taken them.

 

There was no damp studio apartment, no dangerous lifestyle. No…the hospital. She was always ever in the hospital.

 

She never left the hospital.

 

She looked at the man claiming to be her husband, Daniel. His face was different now. He wasn’t crying, he was waiting. Calculating. He was watching her in a different way. The women behind him were different too. All of them stood at the ready. They watched her with expectant eyes.

 

Not a hallucination…a warped scenario. From skipping her meds.

 

It made sense now. It had to.

 

Karen smiled, her lips cracking her head throbbing painfully, “Good morning, Doctor.”

 

The man smiled back, “Very good, Karen.”

Author's Note

Threw this together in a few seconds of mindless day dreaming. Now, my computer is dying so I better find a means of reviving it again. Review and let me know how I did/how you liked it! News post in my blog to come soon!

D for Dysphoria has been listed on Project Fiction's The Good One-Shot list! :) I'm so beyond honored to be afforded this honor! I'll post the link to it in my news post that is soon to come. Thanks to all of you amazing, wonderful people for your reviews and continued support! <3

Reviews=motivation!!

-Mila

Reviews

[Mr_M]

Excellent story. I felt as if I had just woken up and it was I who was laying on the bed. The way it is written feels like a journey, we are as confused trying to piece together this mystery. the confusion and stress must be qute something. You have captured it perfectly. It flows and paced perfectly. You have set the bar with this piece.

[Mila]

Thank you very much for your kind words! :)

[Girl]

i like the way you word the dialogue to really express the character's feelings!Well Done!

[Mila]

Thank you!! :)

[Alicia Wilson]

This is a beautiful piece, I loved it! Nice work :)

[Mila]

Thank you very much!!

[Valkyrie Warrior]

This is a brilliant piece of work!! I really enjoyed it well done.

[Mila]

Thank you!

[Valkyrie Warrior]

Your welcome

[C. Lee Battaglia]

Awesome!!!!!!!! Great start to an great story!
You have a awesome gift.
C. Lee Battaglia

[Mila]

Thank you!! :)

[Liliana Wolfsong]

I really liked this! I agree that the way it is written helps track the thought process of Karen. It was thoroughly captivating. Well done!

[Mila]

Thank you! :)

[Riley Justine]

This is amazing. Really captures the confusion Karen is experiencing. Good job!

[Mila]

Thank you!

[Chris Kay]

Very nice work, I really liked it.

The way it was written really brings out the characters confusion. You live through it with her and it's written as if you really know what it's like being hospitalized, suffering from hallucinations/memory loss, etc...

Bottom-line, excellent short story. It's just as good as any short story that would be assigned in school.

I reviewed this as part of the "let's review each other" group btw, and I'd just like to say I just posted one of my first stories "Mr Denver" there, I'd be honored if by any chance you could read it and provide feedback (you're clearly more of a seasoned and experienced writer than I am).

[Mila]

Thanks very much for the review!
And yes, I will definitely be going through the uploads on that group and seeing what I can review and will look at yours. As said, I have a busy few days coming up, so it may not be for another week or so, but I will be reviewing your work.
Thanks again for the review!

[jjwilbourne]

This story was a great read. Stories like this are always terrifying to me. Psychological thrillers and stories where you don't have control of your mind or your perceived reality are really scary to me.
The line: 'She hand she felt grasping hers was a stranger.' I thibk the first word needs to be 'The'
Excellent work. Very effective.

[Mila]

Thank you!! :):)

[Jennie Baron]

Very thought-provoking and interesting for something you "threw together." It had my mind going in all sorts of different ways. Overall excellent! There are a couple of typos (forgive me for the nit-picky English-teacher type stuff). One sentence I'd consider revising as repetitive: " When she fell asleep, they would wear off and she would fall asleep." You could even place it after the sentence that follows; to me, the sentences before and after seem to flow together.

[Mila]

Thank you so much for the review, and don't worry, I need all the help I can get to improve! Thanks for pointing that out, I'll get right to fixing it! :) So glad you enjoyed!