Ben came to and found himself sitting in a hospital bed. He looked around to get his bearings, the place was familiar but at the same time completely foreign. Like it was a place he had seen on TV but had never actually been to. He pushed himself into a sitting position, tried to swing his legs off the edge of the bed, and found that he was actually hand cuffed.

That was less than ideal.

The clanking of the metal cuffs on the metal rail alerted the police officer who was stationed outside the room in the hall. “Nurse, I think he’s waking up.” He walked in, trailed by a nurse rolling in a cart. “Well, look who has finally decided to join the real world. Tell me, do you have any idea where you are?”

Ben looked up at the officer who seemed almost a cliche of a character with his close-cropped hair and ragged blue suit. Then he looked at the nurse who was busying herself with whatever was on the cart. He was hoping it was lunch, he had the hankering for a big sandwich stacked high with deli meat.

“I’ll ask you again, do you have any idea where you are?” The officer repeated. (Man) had thought earlier that it wasn’t possible for him to sound any more annoyed, but he was quickly surpassing that. It seemed to be his default setting.

“Looks like a hospital room, but I have no idea why I’m here. Was there an accident?”

“Yeah, smart-ass, something like that. The accident of getting yourself shot while fleeing a crime scene.” This elicited a smirk from the nurse.

The mysteries seemed to be compounding. He looked over at the nurse who seemed to be keeping herself busy playing with the machinery. She was quietly adjusting dials and flipping switches on his monitor. The thing was it didn’t seem like anything she was doing was having any effect. The heart monitor he was hooked up to beeped away at a regular pace, and the numbers for his blood pressure held steady. He supposed that was a good thing though. That is what you wanted. And he felt fine, so it wasn’t as if she were adjusting his medication. He looked at the line that was connected to his heart, followed it down to the ground where it wound around and into the back of the machine. He tugged on it gently and the cord moved easily. He pulled some more and the end of the cord came around from the back of the machine.

It wasn’t plugged in.

The heart monitor itself ticked away at its steady pace and no alarm bells went off. The nurse and cop hadn’t even noticed as they talked amongst themselves.

Curiouser and curiouser.

He decided to start probing to find out what this was really about. What the crime was that took place. He knew himself reasonably well and didn’t think he was the sort to get mixed up in anything illegal – unless he happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. “So, what is this crime that occurred?” He was careful not to associate himself with actually committing the crime.

“Don’t play dumb and innocent with us, you know exactly what you did.” The officer said. It even got a scowl from the nurse whose eyes shot at him. This further cemented the fact that he wasn’t hooked up to the monitor because if he had been his heart rate would have spiked as he remembered all those stories of nurses killing patients. He looked around the room noticing there were no other patients. And in all the time they’d been there he hadn’t seen any other doctors, nurses, or patients even walk by the door. He knew then that whatever happened, his main goal was to get passed these two people and out of this hospital.

“Excuse me, nurse?” He tried, his face sinking. “Do you have any pain medication? I can really start to feel it. It used to be a slight throbbing, but it’s grown into a sharp pain. I’m finding it hard to concentrate on what the officer is saying.”

She hesitated and looked at the officer who shook his head. “Nice try crook, but we’re not going to make this easier for you. You’ll have to sit there with the pain, a small amount to the pain that you’ve caused.”

“And what is it that I’m supposed to have done again?”

“Look here you little piece of shit.” The officer reached over and grabbed him by the collar of the hospital gown. “You think you’re some sort of tough guy? You think you’re some kind of big man who is just going to swing in and steal the candy and no one is going to do anything to stop you? Well, let’s just see how tough you really are.” He pulled out his key ring and uncuffed the man from the bed. He pushed him roughly until he got up and out of the bed. The officer then proceeded to hop in and pull the thin blanket over himself and up to his chin.

“Tell me if this sounds familiar?” The officer then began pleading and whining. “Ice cream! Ice cream! Why can’t we get ice cream!”

The man looked at the officer in horror. What the fuck was he doing? He looked up at the nurse who could only stare back and shake her head at him like he was responsible for the tragedy before them.

Then he looked down in his hands. When the officer had taken off his hand cuffs, he had handed both the cuffs and the key to him. It was the opportunity that he had been looking for. He slapped the handcuffs on the officer, cuffing him to the bed. Then he ran for the hall.

The rest of the hospital was eerie in how normal it was. The bright fluorescent lights lining the hallways, the medical equipment and files everywhere. And not a single person in sight. He ran up and down the hallways, taking stairs downward, trying to navigate the labyrinth. He found a set of double doors and slammed through them. He was hit with the sweet breeze of freedom. He closed his eyes to revel in it. There was a saltiness to the air, and he opened his eyes to see that he was standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking the vast ocean.

“Shit.”

He turned around back to the hospital; he didn’t like the idea but at least it was familiar. He had the upper hand with the police officer and the nurse, and he was hoping to get some answers from them. When he turned around, the hospital wasn’t there either.

“Double shit.”