White corridor. I wander through it, knowing that it is a dead end. No way out. Hence no one escapes. "The doors are closed, the beasts are locked" - suddenly comes to mind. Rot, ground and somewhat sickly-sweet stinks out of the room doors. I puke right on the tile floor. I quickly look around to find a rag to clean up after myself. Too late. Tinkling enamel bucket and someone's creaky pace is heard on the stairs. I tumble around, not knowing where to hide. All the beds along the corridor are occupied. Somebody is lying under white sheets. Here is the big toe with a tag on it. Fluorescent lights are flashing on the ceiling, tingling plaintively. The long shadows on the walls are crawling, wrapping into darkness everything along the way.
Shuffling steps on the floor give a pain in the temples. I gagged helplessly, trying to keep the tearing scream from my chest. Something with a loud champ falls to the floor and starts to roll over, gurgling with relish. Fear with slimy tentacles sneaks under the skin, rushes through the veins and entangles the heart. It is hard to breath. Stroke. Another stroke. Lump in my throat, and ringing sounds in the ears because of the fading heart beats. I was waiting in terror, for the one who was coming to me, groaning and moaning with every step. And I cannot get away from the place. Why run forward if there is a deadlock? No help expected. From a viscous blackness a wrinkled face appears, framed by unkempt gray fell of hair. Dark dropped eyes. Mouth - a gaping wound, with splayed joints. Nose ... long decayed. You can see a white bone under the pinkish-gray skin. The creature’s lips are being sprawled in a terrible smile, and I am covered with suffocating swirl of black flies, clods and lumps of someone's skin. Unbearably annoying buzz is screwed into the brain. I gasp when I feel on my cheek a wet tongue and bony hands attract and painfully press into the soft body of the gaping insides from which immediately hundreds of white, fat worms penetrate into me. I scream. Scream as loud as I can, but my voice drowning in the darkening hall, lost in the black smoke that veils the eyes. Yelling does not make sense. No one will hear. No one will help. It is too late.
- Ivanovna, what have you got here? - A young doctor hurries to a janitor, who stiffened with a fragile girl in her arms.
- Well ... here it is ... I was cleaning the floor, and she crawls out of the room. How did she make it? She doesn’t have legs. You amputated her legs, didn’t you? - asks Ivanovna. The doctor nodded, grabbing a girl, he called nurses and gave the instructions.
- What happened to her? Why did you do it to her?
The curious question of a janitor remains unanswered. A girl was taken to the emergency room. Dumbfound Ivanovna set down on the bench next to a plump woman in a white coat that she wore over the top of winter clothing with a feverish flush on her cheeks.
- It is a coaxial.
Ivanovna winces from the whisper of her neighbor. But the other woman blankly drills the door of the operating room.
- What's that? – janitor risks to appeal to a strange woman.
- My daughter is now being operated. She will be the same. Her legs will be amputated. Coaxial. She used to inject in the groin. She wanted to hide from me the fact that she was using drugs. Veins on her hands were clean. And in the groin ... there was a solid rotting meat. Coaxial ... It is sold as an antidepressant, and my daughter ... Addicts inject it intravenously. Dilute this stuff and let into the vein. Then a blood clot appears. Then the dirt in the blood. Rot, - a woman stopped immediately. Ivanovna anxiously looked into her eye and was surprised: my hat! Here is such a grief, and she sits, white as the wall, and not a single tear on her cheeks.
- And you ... – janitor hesitated, not knowing what to say – did she try to quit drugs? I mean your daughter. Or she did not know about the dangers of drug use?
- Quit? She did not have time. Coaxial kills faster than heroin. Than any other drug. Once injected and you get dependency. Breakages ... breakages are worse than heroin. She repeatedly cut her veins. She tried to jump out the window. We went to many doctors. She comes out, and once again starts the old addiction. And then ... Then she disappeared for a long time. We got a call two days ago from the hospital. They asked whether it was our daughter. She was found in one of the drug houses. She no longer could walk. Just laid there and received doses. She ... I remember in minute particulars the day she was born. How she cried, clinging to my chest. How I was glad that I have a daughter, that little human to whom I will give all my love. I had to work hard to get my baby everything she dreamed of. Frequent travels, delays at work. I almost did not see her. And did not notice immediately when everything had changed. When ... When it started. I’m sorry, you probably need to go – covering her eyes with colorless voice concluded the woman.
- I’ll sit here.
Ivanovna understood everything. She delicately lifted. She grabbed a clanking bucket and started to clean the rooms. What could she say to her? That her son died of an overdose last winter? Needless to say something, where the word will not help.
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