"...I always hated needles, ever since I was a child. I never understood why...I don't recall much of that time."
Little nicely dressed beings are ambling around outside the door, with button-up robes and faces darker than midnight. They're dusting up some oddly coloured glass, shattered against the floor. A fading pink hue glimmers in the lamp light. Through the tiny crack between the barely open door and its frame, it was easy to see goings-on without being seen in return.
The door opens completely when they go. Shadow moves along, hands up, as if to creep, rat to cheese. Tip-toeing along –
A hiss. Twisting around a leg to try and access the damage; tiny pink shard punctuating the bare flesh. Forgot the boots, of course. The little nick is bleeding slowly but surely, thick drops clashing terribly with the faded cherry carpet. "...!"
A titter sounds by the ear. Spinning around, a common feat these days – hours? – and there is the mouse, shaking his heavy head from side to side. "My, my, that looks painful. You really ought to be more careful. Here, I know someone who can fix that right up."
The shard of glass has been pulled away but the bleeding continues. The mouse gestures lightly towards an ashen face, and the following begins again. The halls stretch on, and the pain only gets worse. Everything juts up and down due to the limp, doors bob, lamps blur.
The mouse looks over his shoulder, quizzical. "You know...you remind me of someone. Oh? You thought I'd tell you? Nosy, aren't we?"
More walking. Around the corner.
"My name?" A mock gasp of horror, "Silly me! I mustn't have told you. My name is Gregory, your host." He smiles back, eyes broadening if a little. He stops at a door, housing the numbers 209. "I would ask you your name, but I don't think you remember, do you?" He chortles, slowly, and it quickens as he grasps the handle.
Creak, and it opens.
The scent is overwhelming, terribly, familiar. A sharp turn, heel squeaking against the floor. Air, stale and windless, rushing in sticky-out ears as the halls fly by –
"Come back! H-hey!"
Not as cocky or crooning as before, the mouse is calling, loudly. Back around the corner, onward, onward, to the open room door...but logically, if one was being followed, the assigned room would be the first place they'd look. How did they know something bad was going to happen? They'd seen a hospital cramped into one room, a green curtain, needles bigger than their body hung on the wall like trophies. Familiar.
The door is closed, slammed harder than necessary, but the occupant hasn't ventured inside. Instead the silent footsteps continue around the next corner, a back presses against the wall and waits. Eying the lines of doors to keep the mind quiet, ignore the hammering heart.
The voices come, and draw closer.
"I must apologise for the nasty fright, I didn't prepare him well enough..."
"Hmm, the surprise always gets the blood pumping..." A sultry voice purrs, overly enthusiastic, so much so it sends a chill through one's bones. Too much, too much enjoyment, when nothing is happening. The room door opens, the mouse is going inside, and it's obvious by the way the footsteps drag lightly across the carpet.
"There, now, my friend, there's no need to...huh?! Where -?!"
"Omm, what a shame." The voice hums, breathy, horrible, moving towards the other voice's location, "But then who will...relieve this needle lf of its sweet healing properties."
"Ni-ni-ni-no, Not me, I don't – ack!"
The mouse burst from the room and speed – blessedly –down the opposite hall, and the pink shape follows, cackling loudly, laughter punctuating ever breath. Sore feet carry a shivering body back into the room and close the door, the chair is wrenched under the handle. The blankets make for shabby protection. The shivering doesn't stop.
The scent of the medical ward had been oh-so familiar, and an experience one would always avoid.