to Peña’s upper arm.
“Sweet dreams,” she said.
Just then, Peña’s hand twitched and his eyes opened. Sofia jumped back and dropped the syringe on the floor. It rolled under the bed.
“Is he awake?” asked Mattias, who had backed up several steps toward the door.
“No. Look, his eyes are cloudy, unfocused. He’s still unconscious. But I wasn’t prepared for him to... I mean, I was just so surprised.”
She leaned over to pick up the syringe, stretching her arm under the bed, but it had rolled out of reach.
“It’s on your side. Could you pick it up while I prepare a new one?”
Mattias looked nervously at the patient before kneeling down on the floor. He could see Sofia’s feet and legs as he searched under the bed.
The syringe lay far back against the wall; his name tag and the pens in his chest pocket scraped against his chest as he wriggled in to reach it.
Just then, he heard a thud above him. He looked around but couldn’t see Sofia’s legs anymore.
“Sofia?” he said, getting up quickly, his hand gripping the syringe.
His body flooded with adrenaline when he saw that the blanket had been cast off and the bed was now empty.
Draped across the chair next to the bed was Sofia, her arms hanging limply and her eyes closed.
Mattias stared at her, his heart pounding so hard that it thundered in his ears. Not until then did he realize that he should press the alarm button and call for help, or call for the guard. But his body refused to obey him.
He took a step back, turned slowly and discovered the patient standing completely still behind him, just two steps away, his fists clenched and his eyes dark.
Mattias gripped the syringe harder and raised it, as if to defend himself.
“Don’t even think about it,” Peña said hoarsely, stepping toward the nurse.
Mattias tried to jab the syringe into Peña, but his arm movement was too predictable. Peña caught his arm instead and twisted it, causing a sharp pain to shoot through Mattias’s body.
“What do you want?” Mattias whimpered. “Just tell me what you want, I can help you...”
The pain in his arm rendered him unable to say anything more. He couldn’t stand it any longer, and the syringe slipped from his hand and fell to the floor.
“Take off your clothes.”
“What?”
“Take off your clothes. Now!”
“Okay, okay,” Mattias said, but remained standing. He felt paralyzed, as if he were completely incapable of moving.
Only when Peña repeated the words a third time did he finally understand. As he pulled his white shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor, he noticed Peña’s monitor wires came loose and dropped to the floor.
“Pants, too.”
Mattias glanced toward the door.
“Are you stupid? Hurry up.”
The blow to his face came so quickly, Mattias didn’t have time to react. He touched his mouth gingerly and felt warm blood between his fingers.
Peña leaned over and picked up the syringe.
“Please,” Mattias said, “I’ll do whatever you want...”
“Your pants.”
Mattias quickly undid the drawstring on his white pants, pulling them down past his knees. He tried to pull one leg out, but his white gym shoe got caught in the fabric. He lost his balance and fell sideways. He felt a sharp pain in his hip as he landed on the floor but continued tugging on his pants leg.
He finally got his shoes and pants off and noticed the goose bumps covering his skin. He thought about his son, Vincent, who always got undressed so slowly. He always had to nag the boy when it was time to take a bath or go to bed. Now he promised himself that he would never nag him again. Never again, he thought, feeling a lump forming in his throat.
“You forgot your socks. Come on!”
Mattias pulled off his socks, and looked at Peña.
“I have a family, a son...”
“Get up,” Danilo said. “And get into the bed.”
Mattias stumbled forward, lacking nearly all physical control, but he managed to stay on his feet and climb up onto the sheets. He waited, panting and trembling.
“Now what?”
“Lie down,” Peña said.
“Here? In the bed?”
“In the bed.”
Mattias noticed the sheets were still warm as he laid his head on the pillow. He was uncomfortable but didn’t dare move. Next to the bed he noticed a heart monitor machine and IV fluid pole.
Peña bent over and attached the heart monitor clip to Mattias, then picked up the shirt and pants from the floor, and put them on. The pants hung loosely from his waist. Then he turned back toward Mattias, pushed aside the sheet and held the original syringe over the nurse’s naked chest, a half-inch above his heart.
“It’s time for your shot,” he said with a sneer.
Mattias saw the needle pierce his skin. Then everything happened so quickly he didn’t have time to react as a coldness spread through his veins.
A red dot appeared from the puncture wound and soaked into the white sheet.
He should have felt scared, but he didn’t feel anything. All he could do was observe and register.
Peña said something, but the words echoed as if they had been uttered in a tunnel. Mattias saw him adjust the white shirt, pick up the pen that had fallen on the floor, put it in his breast pocket and look at himself in the mirror. He smoothed both hands over his dark hair before turning again toward Mattias.
“Sweet dreams,” he said.
He walked toward the door. Mattias heard it unlock, open and close again.
“This can’t be happening,” was his last thought.
Then he felt it come. The silence.
Followed by the chill. It began in his feet and hands, spreading slowly from his legs, arms and head in toward his heart.
And finally, darkness.
