From the outside, the overwhelming brick structure appears as a haven to heal for the sick, but from within, it serves as a prison, where the sickness terrorizes the inmates doomed here. A bright red cross glows above in the moonlight, appearing as a beacon of hope, despite all those within the structure feeling hopeless. The large glass doors slide open by themselves, welcoming in all who dare to come near. Beyond the glass, white coats rush by in a blur in all different directions, hurrying to serve their independent duties of checking blood pressure, feeding patients, giving baths, monitoring heart rates, and giving medication to the helpless.
A heavy metal door swings open to reveal a labyrinth of a hundred overwhelming hallways. The white walls extend for what seems like miles. A fluorescent buzzing light runs along the ceiling to the end of the corridor. The bright hall strains the human eye as it stares into the abyss of the neverending white hallway, illuminated by the blinding lights. The only color emerges at the very end of the passage, where a faint red exit sign glows. It appears as the only escape for those within, but only reveals a staircase to the other hundred halls beyond this one.
The sagging eyes of a receptionist light up for a moment at the sight of another living human at this early of an hour, but the excitement is not reciprocated by the other, due to the sorrow of being among these white walls again. The only other creatures she often sees here resemble zombies attached to IV bags, who slowly stumble down the hall to get a taste of the freedom beyond their prison beds. They desire health. They desire happiness. They desire escape. The shoes of the visitor clack across the cold tile, passing by identical rooms filled with dormant bodies on bed rest. Most bodies are told they must only stay a couple of days. But a couple days turn into a couple weeks. A couple weeks turn into a couple months. A couple months can turn into the end of their lives. The visitor wanders in a maze of all the bodies who appear the same, hopeless and trapped they are still.
Gray indented chairs from being sat in for too long line against the walls of this boxed in room. The lights are duller here. Waiting. The visitors can finally rest their eyes, they can finally rest their soul. Magazines fall off the wall, unread and unkept for months. The chips stacked in the vending machine taste stale, but still the most delicious dinner available to the visitors who have made these indented chairs their home away from home.
The only sound escaping into the hall from the patients rooms are quiet sobs and beeping heart monitors. Among the rooms, the visitors kneel alongside the bed with a rosary in hand. A prayer escapes the lips of the grieving as death dances over the bodies of their loved ones. The bodies are still alive, but the bodies are not living. The rooms are stenched with sorrow, sickness, and sterile. White sheets, white walls, white light. The white fills the rooms, but darkness still looms. Each room reeks of bleach that cleanses the metal instruments and IV stands, while it destroys any sense of humanity for the bodies trapped within. The blinds on the window are shut, keeping out all of the outside world, besides a single beam of moonlight that shines in the only hope left in the darkness of this dull night for the bodies of the alive, but not living.